While I never met Mr. Cameron except through a television set, he would be my template for a textbook-perfect broadcast journalist.

When interviewing someone, he had that rare gift of  a) seemingly reading my mind about what questions I wanted answered, b)  pleasantly surprising me by asking something really interesting that I'd never even thought of and most importantly, c) never making me throw a tantrum by causing me to yell "what a stupid question!"

And now he's gone.

An excerpt from the CTV.ca story:

Veteran Canadian journalist Bill Cameron, whose illustrious career spanned many decades in print, on television and radio, has died of cancer. He was 62.

"He was one of the last of the classic journalists," CBC senior executive documentary producer Mark Starowicz told The Canadian Press.

"The man was a terrific writer, a terrific correspondent, an anchor, a documentary writer and a documentary director," said Starowicz, who hired Cameron in 1983 for CBC's news magazine program The Journal.

"A lot of people are good at one of those things. I can't think of anyone else that's good at all of those things."

Cameron died around midnight Friday night of cancer of the esophagus that spread to his brain and liver, a CBC spokeswoman told The Canadian Press.

Here's the CBC's story on his passing.