HAIL TO THE CHIEF Prairie Dog enters the Maragos era.
Prairie Dog is pleased as spiked punch to announce today the hiring of former television news anchor Costa Maragos. Maragos, who retired last week after 31-year CBC career, will assume the newly created post of Executive Chief Editor In Charge.
As the paper’s first-ever ECEIC, Maragos will have final say on all of Prairie Dog’s news, arts and lifestyle content.
“I’m stoked,” said Maragos, reached at his palatial Regina home built of priceless ancient marble harvested from the Acropolis (and paid for with countless taxpayer dollars harvested from his gold-plated CBC gig).
The veteran of the jacket-and-necktie world of nightly broadcast news is looking forward to Prairie Dog’s more casual work environment, which includes a mandatory jeans ‘n’ T-shirt dress code and daily 2:00 p.m. happy hour. “I’m out of my suit and now feel liberated,” said Maragos, adding, “I’m free, free free.”
More importantly, Maragos is free from the suffocating mask of so-called impartiality he’s been forced to wear these many long years.
“I’ve worked on the inside and kept quiet for too long,” said Maragos. “It’s time for the true voices of this community to stand up and take on the mainstream media of Regina. I aim to give people that voice. The further outside the box the better.”
While the decision to join Prairie Dog will annihilate his reputation as an unbiased journalist (and respectable citizen), Maragos is excited about taking the helm of a paper many Reginans have affectionately called “a [bleeping] rag”.
“I see bigger things for Prairie Dog,” said Maragos, pouring himself a generous tumbler of 25-year-old Laphroaig. “I want to take this thing national. Coast to coast to coast, articulating the unique Prairie voice that Canada wants and needs.”
You think I’m kidding? Just watch me,” he added.