2023 Distinguished Service Award
RTDNA Canada recognizes Joanne McPherson with the 2023 Distinguished Service Award
“Joanne has been a key member of the RTDNA Canada Board. She is creative, committed, and has worked so hard to deliver sponsorship dollars that make our national conference possible.”
– Lis Travers, President, RTDNA Canada
About Joanne
Joanne McPherson, Managing Editor for Program and Content Strategies with CBC News is grateful for a 30-year career in journalism.
As an Editorial Assistant at 23, she had the ambition of being a reporter but the chance of a lifetime reporting live after a baby was taken from a Burlington hospital set her in another direction. Joanne says,“My family and colleagues said, Wow, you did great! but I looked at the tape and said, never again!”That set Joanne off an impressive path of field journalism as an Associate Producer with CBC’s Washington bureau and then as Joe Schlesinger’s producer for his program Schlesinger and later Foreign Assignment that took her around the world working with many of CBC’s most distinguished international journalists.
She then went on to be an assignment editor for the Ontario region and managed the New York assignments through the tragic events on September 11th.
A deployment to London, which was her dream job, was thwarted twice by the lifetime gifts of two beautiful sons.
When she returned to work, she moved on to what she says is her proudest career period, working forCBC’s News world, now CBC News Network, as a line up and control room producer and eventually Executive Producer of Morning Live and responsible for Breaking News.
In 2009, she was asked to join management to help transition the newsroom to be structured for live broadcasting. She then went on to lead integration for all platforms for the health, business, and entertainment content units.
Joanne now oversees on behalf of News all of our promotions and external marketing and communications with a talented group of colleagues and says, “I have the best job ever! I aim every day to help let Canadians know the incredible content we do every day on TV, Radio, Gem, Explore and on our CBC NewsApp. What could be more gratifying than celebrating my colleagues’ incredible journalism every single day. I am eternally proud to be with CBC News.”
“Joanne rightly deserves her place on the impressive list of names of past winners of this award. She is deeply committed to journalism and the work of RTDNA Canada to lift up and celebrate the best of us in this business. Congratulations Joanne!” Brodie Fenlon, Editor in Chief, Executive Director of Programs and Standards,CBC News
The RTDNA Canada Distinguished Service Award honours a member who has played a major role in the continuing success of RTDNA Canada. The award is presented in recognition and appreciation of outstanding contribution and exemplary distinguished service rendered for the benefit and advancement of electronic journalism and RTDNA.
To see past winners, click here.