Bono was larger than life and a legendary columnist
Legendary Sun newsman has died at age 76
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Mark Bonokoski was the Toronto Sun’s rockstar, so it was fitting that we always called him Bono.
Growing up in Lyn, Ontario near Brockville, he graduated from the journalism program at what was then called Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, before being hired by the Calgary Herald and Windsor Star as a general assignment reporter.
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A member of the “Windsor Mafia” — a bevy of talented young Windsor Star journalists who eventually landed at the Toronto Sun, which rose from the ashes of the Toronto Telegram in 1971 — Bono joined the paper in 1974, and never looked back.
An uber-talented, larger-than-life, no-holds-barred writer with his long hair, trademark moustache, gravelly voice and 24/7 work ethic, Bono — tough on the outside but with a kind heart and a profound sense of right and wrong — embarked on a remarkable career for almost half a century, centred around the Toronto Sun and Sun Media.
Given an up-front, daily news column in 1977 at the age of 28 in recognition of his talent, Bono churned out five must-read pieces a week as a young marquee columnist who instinctively understood the Toronto Sun’s motto to “write for the man and woman who rides on the King St. streetcar.”
Bono banged out his first column — in triplicate — on a manual typewriter from a low-rent motel room near Kingston Penitentiary.
He was up for anything, including trying out for the Toronto Blue Jays in Dunedin and writing about the experience.
He was fearless, never backing down from a fight if the cause was just.
He wrote about out-of-control crime by showing how easy it was to get an illegal gun, by buying one himself.
His media contacts were legendary, including the time he received a phone call in the newsroom from the hitman who had just murdered Toronto mobster Paul Volpe, directing Bono to the exact location where his body could be found.
He exposed the antisemitic hatred of Ernst Zundel, long before Zundel became infamous for his views.
He fought to raise $50,000 to get experimental stem-cell research in China for two disabled sisters from Port Perry.
He campaigned successfully for the name of Toronto Staff-Sgt. Eddie Adamson to be included on a memorial wall of fallen police officers, after it was determined his suicide stemmed from not being able to go in and try to save Const. Michael Sweet, who was bleeding to death at the hands of the notorious Munro brothers during a botched robbery in 1980.
Then Ontario ombudsman Andre Marin launched one of the largest investigations in his office’s history as a result of a series Bono wrote on post-traumatic stress disorder among Ontario Provincial Police officers and the anguish caused by the brass’ failure to address it.
He wrote a 15-part series titled the “Red Road” on the challenges, tragedies and hardships faced by First Nations citizens living in Canada’s cities.
About his decades of international reporting for Sun Media — including an assignment as the chain’s London-based foreign correspondent — Bono wrote:
“There is no greater adventure than to be at history’s elbow when the world changes, to be in Berlin at the very moment the Wall came down, to dodge gunfire in Rhodesia, to find yourself in a room in the Vatican next to where a pope lies recovering from an assassin’s bullet, or to be in an IRA funeral cortege in sectarian Belfast when two off-duty soldiers get lynched.”
Along the way, Bono served as a national affairs columnist and national editorial writer for Sun Media and editor, publisher and CEO of the Ottawa Sun.
His own toughest critic, Bono wrote with brutal honesty about his time as an executive:
“My worst days … were those three years … when I was publisher and CEO of the Ottawa Sun, and my eyes were buried in budget books and not staring at a blank page on a computer screen with a column deadline looming … writing is what I loved, not management.”
Bono didn’t write to win awards but he won so many they would be too numerous to list here, culminating in his induction into the Canadian News Hall of Fame in 2017.
He even went over to the dark side of journalism — politics — briefly.
He sought the nomination of the now-defunct Canadian Alliance Party in Ottawa West-Nepean in 2000, but was defeated because some party members felt he was too moderate.
He later served stints as director of communications to then Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak and as a communications advisor to then Conservative federal transport minister Lisa Raitt.
Finally there were the roles he was proudest of — husband of 41 years to his beloved Karen, father to his “beam of light,” daughter Erin, and grandfather of two.
In June, Bono broke his final story, that his lung cancer was terminal and he did not have long to live. He died Thursday morning.
He told his Facebook followers last month: “Doctors say the days of treating the disease are over. Radiation didn’t work and chemotherapy has been ruled out. Time to let it run its course. So this is it. My last Father’s Day. My last birthday at month’s end. So I will be leaving at age 76. Wife Karen, bless her, has thus far been a rock. Daughter Erin a beam of light. I’m a lucky man.”
And we’re all the luckier for having known him.
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