I would like to take a few moments to pay tribute to someone who helped shape more headlines than almost anyone I know.
Recently, Len Arminio passed away. Len was a professor at Loyalist College in the Broadcast Journalism department for 28 years, helping to educate, train and season an entire generation’s worth of reporters, anchors and other journalists.
While I didn’t study under him myself, I worked with and alongside dozens of people who were, many of which I managed over the years in the newsroom of this very radio station.
Social media is now flooded with tributes from former students whose very drive and love for the industry Len helped to spark.
I best remember Len from countless meetings of the Broadcast Journalism Advisory committee at Loyalist College, where I was a member for over 10 years. He was always driven to help people get better, uncompromising when it came to quality and accuracy, quick with a joke and an insightful comment on the changing nature of the industry and dedicated to instilling the principles that are sometimes lacking today.
When I attended bearpit sessions to speak with and listen to students, it was Len who often gave me the “low down” on promising candidates and also the general mood and nature of that year’s class. His eye and ear for talent were as remarkable as he was.
You would never know it, but the news you have listened to over the past three decades has often been shaped by this role model, instructor and life-coach for local journalists.
His contributions to the industry and to the community at Loyalist College itself are both remarkable and undeniable. His legacy continues on airwaves both in and outside the Quinte Region and we are all the better for it.
I’m Paul Martin and that’s what I see looking Beyond the Headlines.
