Allan Fotheringham was a Canadian newspaper and magazine journalist.
19 Facts About Allan Fotheringham
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Allan Fotheringham styled himself Dr Foth and "the Great Gatheringfroth".
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Allan Fotheringham was described as "never at a loss for words".
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Allan Fotheringham's father died from an appendectomy gone wrong when Fotheringham was two, and his mother remarried, with Allan taking his stepfather's surname.
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Allan Fotheringham attended Chilliwack Secondary School, where he was active in student leadership and wrote for the school's paper, as well as the Chilliwack Progress.
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Allan Fotheringham was best known as a columnist, originally at the Ubyssey, a student newspaper.
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Allan Fotheringham was hired straight out of university by the Vancouver Sun during the heady times of the late 1960s, the final days of the old Bennett Socreds provincially and the advent of Pierre Trudeau federally.
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Allan Fotheringham was one of the leading specialists in explaining the world of British Columbia politics during his time at the Sun.
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Allan Fotheringham's column appeared on the back page of the magazine for 27 years, and was so widely read and so influential that he is said to have made Maclean's the magazine people read "from back to front".
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Allan Fotheringham is credited with coining the terms "Natural Governing Party" for the federal Liberals, and the "Holy Mother Corporation" for the CBC in the course of writing his column.
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Allan Fotheringham was a regular panelist for a decade in the latter years of the CBC Television program Front Page Challenge, having replaced the deceased Gordon Sinclair in 1984.
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Allan Fotheringham wrote columns for the Toronto Sun for fourteen years until 2000.
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In 2001, Maclean's underwent an editorial revamp, and Allan Fotheringham's column was moved to an inside page to make room for a guest column.
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Allan Fotheringham had a national syndicated column that was in 20 newspapers, but he retired from regular contributions in 2007, after life-threatening complications from a colonoscopy led to his hospitalization for five months.
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Allan Fotheringham continued to write occasionally for the Globe and for the National Post, as well as a Calgary magazine called The Roughneck.
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Allan Fotheringham had honorary degrees from the University of New Brunswick and the University of Saskatchewan.
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Allan Fotheringham died on August 19,2020, at his home in Toronto.
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Allan Fotheringham was 12 days short of his 88th birthday.
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In 1987, Allan Fotheringham quipped that the United States were not serious about free trade negotiations with Canada because its chief negotiator Peter Murphy had an inoperable brain tumor, which is alleged to have led to his dismissal from his Washington post with Southam News.