BOOK REVIEW: Malarek writes again (12/01/96)

BOOK REVIEW: Malarek writes again

"Gut Instinct: The Making of an Investigative Journalist," by Victor Malarek. Toronto: Macmillan Canada, 1996, 271 pp. $29.95 in Canada.

by Dr. Marta Dyczok

Street kids rarely become successful journalists on national television. What they do is hone their instincts at an early age in order to survive. Victor Malarek, former street kid and currently a co-host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's "Fifth Estate" investigative news program, used what he learned in his youth to become one of the top investigative reporters in Canada. He also happens to be Ukrainian.

His latest book, aptly titled "Gut Instinct: The Making of an Investigative Journalist," is already making a splash. Published on a best-seller print run by Macmillan Canada, the book has attracted attention - and not only among TV and radio presenters who have hosted Mr. Malarek on shows across the country. It also has the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and probably the Prime Minister's Office nervous.

The book begins with a warning that it is not a memoir or an autobiography, but rather an account of the stories behind the stories that make the headlines. In a fast-paced style laced with dialogue, Mr. Malarek explains why he keeps digging up stories of child suicides, contaminated drinking water, the untold stories behind the lines in war zones, or the "Kafkaesque red tape" some legitimate refugees face after arriving in Canada.

The veteran journalist traces his rise from the newsroom of The Montreal Star, where he worked as a copy-boy, to the staff of Canada's "national newspaper," the Toronto-based Globe and Mail, to his position as editor of the country's most respected investigative news team, on CBC-TV's "Fifth Estate."

Mr. Malarek told this writer he anticipates there may be angst in the Prime Minister's Office following his exposé of Jean Chrétien's financial dealings. In the book he recounts how he discovered that Mr. Chrétien, while a partner at Lang Michener, one of the most prestigious law firms in Canada, avoided paying taxes by placing his wife on the payroll. After reading Mr. Malarek's book, Ottawa columnist Doug Fischer has written about the affair at length.

Other chapters deal with the intrepid reporter's coverage of a governmental cover-up of radiation contamination in northern Ontario, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini's campaign against the Kurds, and the folly of Canada's intelligence community bungling immigration cases. In one case, Mahmoud Muhammad Issa Mohammad, a notorious terrorist, got into the country, while in another, Santokh Singh, was almost deported to India on the unfounded suspicion that he was a terrorist.

In the book's final chapter, Mr. Malarek traces a botched RCMP drug operation in Thailand, which resulted in the death of a Mountie and the sentencing of a Canadian citizen, Alain Olivier, to a 100-year term in a Bangkok jail. Mr. Malarek's suspicion was aroused while reading the RCMP press release announcing the first-ever death of one of its undercover narcotics officers. "Something about the story didn't sit right with me," he writes. "What, I wondered, were the Mounties doing making a drug bust in the Golden Triangle?"

Since the publication of "Gut Instinct," Canada's Department of External Affairs has been in touch with Mr. Malarek, informing him that his book spurred the inquiry into the imprisonment of Mr. Olivier. The veteran reporter said that after years of official stalling, the hapless Mr. Olivier will likely be brought back to Canada in February 1997.

Ukrainian Canadians have followed the career of Mr. Malarek and consider him one of their own, and he is equally up-front about his background. In "Gut Instinct," he mentions how dancing with the Black Sea Cossacks of Toronto helped him stay in shape, and how it came in handy when climbing mountains with Kurd rebels in Iran. References to his "Cossack mustache" (which along with his once long hair and direct manner set him apart) appear throughout the book.

However, Ukrainian readers will be disappointed that Mr. Malarek makes no mention of his coverage (for the Globe and Mail) of the International Atomic Energy Agency's first post-Chornobyl conference in Vienna in August 1986, or that one of his earliest assignments since coming to CBC's "Fifth Estate" involved travelling to the 30-kilometer "exclusionary zone" five years later.

Mr. Malarek's ties to the community remain strong, however. His latest book's October 22 launch, attended by Macmillan President Ron Besse, took place at the Ukrainian-owned Future Bakery Café on Yonge Street. To boot, the Canadian Friends of Ukraine used the occasion of the publication of his latest book to honor him with a champagne reception at Toronto's posh Albany Club on November 8.

Luminaries from the world of journalism and politics, and leaders of the community assembled at the Albany Club to praise Mr. Malarek. Tom Clark, national news editor of the rival Baton Broadcasting Systems network, called him "hard-nosed but soft-hearted," while "Canada's Walter Cronkite," veteran broadcaster and longtime CBC anchor Knowlton Nash, lauded Mr. Malarek as "the country's most dogged journalist."

"Gut Instinct" would probably become a best-seller in Ukraine if translated and reprinted, and serve as an excellent companion piece to "Ferreting Out the Facts: The Nature and Practice of Investigative Journalism," a booklet published in June 1995 prior to Mr. Malarek's one-month trip to Ukraine that year.

At a time when journalism is struggling to emerge as an honest profession in Ukraine, the success story of Victor Malarek could inspire a generation of investigative journalists who would give corrupt Ukrainian officials a run for their money.

One word of warning. Don't start reading "Gut Instinct" on a weeknight. You'll find yourself bleary-eyed at work the next morning.