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The Passing of Peter Godfrey

By Ben Meisner

There won’t be any parades to the cenotaph for him, there won’t be any special days of mourning, but a man who made a difference died yesterday in Nanaimo.

His name was Peter Godfrey. Former Editor of the Prince George Citizen and more recently Managing Editor of the Nanaimo Daily news.

I have spent just months short of fifty years in the media, Newspaper, Radio and TV. If that tenure gives one a sense of who has really counted in this business I can safely say that Peter Godfrey was one of those people who never, ever, let his personal feelings get in the way of what he should report. He was, in my mind, a true reporter, through and through.

I met Pete when I wrote for the Citizen, I new only too well that there were times when the column I was handing in totally disagreed with his position. He never tried to influence a cut , never suggested I was a way off base, he simply looked at me and smiled. That folks is the true meaning of someone who believes in the, “Free Press “. Pete did... He loved the business as a matter of fact it was in many ways his down fall.

Instead of seeing a doctor for any problems he might have, he was busy at the typewriter trying to bang out a column, and no, he didn’t have favorites, which is why there will be no parades for him. There will just be a few people, like the love of his life, Judy ,who understood the meaning of Peter Godfrey, and yet another person who I also hold in the utmost esteem, Bob McKenzie.

I asked Bob, (who by the way was the guy who brought Pete over from Prince Rupert to run the Editorial desk of the Citizen) what he thought of the guy. He said "Pete was my friend for the past 22 years. He was a great newspaper guy, and he never let personal feelings get in the way of what should be said... He was highly principled and didn’t think his job was really work, because he always called it the way he saw it" Bob knows because he lives the way he speaks.

So today, even if you didn’t know him, out of respect for a great journalist, please do me a favor, think about just how important the right to free speech really is. When you're thinking in that vein, you can say we have suffered a great loss in that one of those people who held that principle so close to his chest throughout his life, left us early yesterday

I am honored to have known you Pete.

That, is one man's opinion.
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