by: Yuriy Diakunchak
Gut Instinct, Victor Malarek's newest book, the author writes about the stories behind the investigative stories he wrote during his days as a newspaper reporter for the Montreal Star and the Globe and Mail. As Malarek states in the prologue, it is a book about the life of an investigative reporter.
Scrappy, self-confident, rude. These are just a few adjectives that describe Malarek. The writing style of his book shows the arrogant self-confidence needed in order to become an investigative journalist.
Malarek's refusal to accept the official line, like in the Norma Dean suicide case, is what allows him to get at the truth. There's no way anyone is going to pull the wool over his eyes. His "angry young man" nature forces him to question everything even if it sounds like it could be right. He doesn't believe it because he knows the authorities are lying.
Malarek recounts an anonymous call denouncing a Sikh immigrant to Canada as a terrorist and a killer that "triggered my built-in crap-detecting radar." After some digging, Malarek was able to break a story showing that Joe Clark, Canada's External Affairs Minister at the time, was using an innocent man as a scapegoat in the hopes of securing lucrative trade deals with India.
Nobody gets to browbeat Malarek and anyone who tries, gets a taste of his attitude. When Bob Frewin a PR lackey with the Ontario Health and Environment Ministry tries to show Malarek who's boss by calling him "sonny boy" and threatening to contact Malarek's superiors he just makes the news hound hungrier for the kill. "I'm, not your fucking sonny boy," Malarek yells as he is thrown out of the office. Needless to say, Malarek breaks the story of the Ministry covering up radioactive contaminants in the drinking water of a small Ontario community.
Malarek proves time and again that he is far ahead of the pack when it comes to digging up stories. Assigned to cover the Iranian revolution, he sneaks off to see the Kurdish struggle for independence from Iran while the pack-journalists stick to the approved zones covering the hostage crises. This is one of the points in the book where Malarek mentions his Ukrainian roots, comparing the Kurdish fight for independence to that of Ukraine's. The most exciting part of this chapter is Malarek's flight from Iran. Having travelled to restricted zones and trying to export pictures of the war out of Iran could land him into serious trouble. But he manages to slip out of the country on a holiday when no one is around to tell the lackeys at the airport to prevent his departure.
The book goes a long way in showing that people in authority need the Victor Malareks of this world to keep them on their toes. As stated in one part of the book, a memo with MalarekÕs name on it spells trouble. As long as that is true, at least part of the truth will be known.