MEDIA MEMOIR
How a Rebel With Long Hair and Earrings Found a Home At Toronto’s CityTV
I worked at Canada’s most famous television channel
When I went to work each day, I wondered, would I shake hands with a prime minister or run into Lady Gaga in the hallway? It was always a possibility. Even before walking through those front doors for my job interview, I knew what I was in for.
Everyone knew CityTV, an independent television station in Toronto with an international reputation for its creativity. As for me? I was as far away from the typical TV news person as you could get. I had long hair and earrings, but nobody batted an eye. In fact, that was part of my allure and what helped land me the job — it wasn’t only about my experience.
When I arrived in the city five years earlier, I thought I left the radio and TV news business behind but it’s one of those jobs that keeps pulling you back in.
First, it was a part-time on-air position in a radio newsroom. I quit that job in a very public way when I walked out in the middle of my news shift, resulting in dead air. The station had just announced layoffs and while I kept my job, my friends were out on their ass.
