FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—Toronto, ON, Friday, March 21, 2025 – Theresa M. O’Leary, best known for her award-winning work as a news journalist with CBC Radio News, has signed with Ingenium Books to publish her first book. Race to the Cape is centred around Cape Race, NL, and the pivotal role it played in the development of early transatlantic communications and modern journalism.
“Family history sparked this book idea and will be a part of the story,” O’Leary, whose accolades include a Gabriel Award and a Gracie Award, said. As a child, her father would tell her about her great aunt, who used to work on the telegraph at Cape Race, and how the Associated Press had a news boat there. Years later, as a young news reporter, she became familiar with the AP byline from the respected New York-based news-wire service. “Those childhood stories prompted me to conduct archival research, which confirmed some astonishing facts.”
The Associated Press, a pioneering news service in the 1850s, did indeed have a news boat stationed at Cape Race, where they could get the latest news from Europe from passing ships in a daring news chase, navigating dangerous and unpredictable conditions, and then use the Cape Race telegraph station to wire this news to their head office in New York City. To ensure that the stories that were hot off the press weren’t about events from weeks before, the news reports would then be wired to newspapers around the United States and what would become Canada.
Race to the Cape is not only the story of Cape Race, the telegraph, and the Associated Press, but also of Daniel H. Craig, the news hound who saw the opportunity for getting fact-based news out to the masses before the story got twisted. He pioneered the principles of reporting the news in a truthful, objective way.
“Daniel H. Craig might turn over in his grave to learn of the changes that have occurred in the field of journalism in the twenty-first century,” O’Leary said. “He might think the state of news has slid backwards, to a time when newspapers were owned by wealthy men who used the platform to share their opinionated view of the world, not for the public good, but for profits.”
“In these days of fake news and so many of our news sources slanting towards opinion rather than just giving us the facts, the Associated Press is still one of the most respected names in media,” said Boni Wagner-Stafford, publisher at Ingenium Books. “As a former journalist myself, I’m excited to play a part in sharing this daring story of American and Canadian cooperation to keep people informed. And it’s a gripping read!”
Race to the Cape is set to be published in late summer 2025.
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Media inquiries:
Boni Wagner-Stafford, publisher, Ingenium Books
boni@ingeniumbooks.com
1-(647)-576-2434
