Ralph Noseworthy, a familiar face on Montreal television news for decades, has died at the age of 81.
Noseworthy spent nearly two decades working for CTV Montreal — then known as CFCF-12 — as the National Assembly reporter at what was then known as Pulse News.
By the 1990s, he was hitting the streets to track down shady business owners for a consumer affairs show called Action 12.
In 1987, while working in Quebec City, he managed to obtain details of a Quebec budget that was to have been tabled the following week, and broadcast them later that night. That forced the then-government of Robert Bourassa and his finance minister, Gerard D. Levesque, to table the budget later that evening.
The scoop, according to longtime Gazette political columnist Don Macpherson, didn't come to Noseworthy via a leak, but rather it's because he went dumpster-diving — Macpherson tweeted that he found a discarded copy of the budget in a building housing the Treasury Board, and the National Assembly press gallery.
He died of a heart attack at his home on Boxing Day, surrounded by his family.
I was just informed of the passing of my friend, colleague, and early mentor at CFCF-12 Ralph Noseworthy. The man never took no for an answer, and earned the nickname Ralph Newsworthy. Will miss you buddy.
— Stéphane Giroux (@SGirouxCTV) December 27, 2017
He would find shredded docs in the Treasury Board trash, and try to piece the strips together. He would wait with his cameraman for Lévesque in the tunnel from the premier’s office to the #assnat, until Lévesque made the tunnel off-limits to journos. #noseworthy #polqc
— Don Macpherson (@DMacpGaz) December 27, 2017