Gwyn "Jocko" Thomas (August 16, 1913 – May 5, 2010) was a crime reporter with

CFRB CFRB (1010 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is owned by Bell Media and carries a News/Talk radio format. Its studios and offices are in the Entertainment District at 250 Richmond Street West. CFRB is a clea ...

and the ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

''. Born in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Thomas began his news career as a newsboy at the corner of Bathurst Street and

Bloor Street Bloor Street is a major east–west residential and commercial thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Bloor Street runs from the Prince Edward Viaduct, which spans the Don River Valley, westward into Mississauga where it ends at Central Parkw ...

in 1925. After one year of high school, Thomas was hired by the ''

'' as a

copyboy A copy boy is a typically young and junior worker on a newspaper. The job involves taking typed stories from one section of a newspaper to another. According to Bruce Guthrie, the former editor-in-chief of the ''Herald Sun'' who began work there ...

in 1929. He worked his way as a general reporter in the early 1930s to becoming the paper's crime reporter by 1939. In the 1960s, Thomas entered a new medium by becoming a radio crime reporter on

. Thomas' career involved covering the minor criminal activities in Toronto's suburbs, but also famous criminal stories: * Christie Pits race riots in 1933. * Stanley Buckowski on death row at California's

San Quentin prison San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County. Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is the ...

(1951); and execution 1952. *

Boyd Gang The Boyd Gang was a notorious criminal gang based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, named for member Edwin Alonzo Boyd. The gang was a favourite of the media at the time because of their sensational actions, which included bank robberies, jail breaks, ...

Widely remembered for his unique sign-off at the end of his live radio news reports: "This is Jocko Thomas of The Toronto Star reporting to CFRB... from police headquarters." Retired in 1989, Thomas died at a long-term care facility in

North York North York is one of the six administrative districts of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located directly north of York, Old Toronto and East York, between Etobicoke to the west and Scarborough to the east. As of the 2016 Census, it had a popu ...

at the age of 96.

Awards

National Newspaper Awards The National Newspaper Awards (french: link=no, Concours canadien de journalisme) are prizes awarded annually for the best work in Canadian newspapers. Synopsis The awards were first given in 1949 by the Toronto Press Club, which ran the awards un ...

(3) * local police reporting awards (9) * member of the

Canadian News Hall of Fame Founded by the Toronto Press Club (now known as the Toronto Press and Media Club) in 1965, the Canadian News Hall of Fame honours more than 100 men and women who have made significant contributions to journalism in Canada. Nominations for inductio ...

(1995)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Gwyn 1913 births 2010 deaths Canadian newspaper reporters and correspondents Canadian radio reporters and correspondents Mass media people from Toronto