Karyn Pugliese named new editor-in-chief of Canadaland

Canadaland has named veteran journalist Karyn Pugliese as its new editor-in-chief as founder and publisher Jesse Brown steps back from the podcast network’s chief editorial post.

The company says in her new role, Pugliese will lead the Canadaland newsroom, set the editorial direction of the company as it moves into its second decade, maintain its investigative mandate, and oversee its growing slate of podcasts, including the flagship CANADALAND podcast.

Pugliese, who’ll take up her new position in July, has already been working with the network as host and co-producer of canadaLANDBACK, which explores the history of Indigenous resistance, produced in partnership with Canada’s National Observer, where she’s served as editor-in-chief for the past year.

“I’ve admired Karyn for years and it’s a dream come true to welcome her into our newsroom as its new leader,” said Brown, in a publisher’s note. “Karyn lives and breathes journalism. She is fearless, compassionate, highly skilled, and tough as nails. She mentors and protects her reporters and their stories, and she persistently plagues powerful people with ugly secrets. I’m proud that we built a news organization worthy of her talents, and I’m excited to go with her, wherever she takes us.”

Early in her career, Pugliese worked for APTN as a Parliament Hill correspondent, going on to take up the position of Director of News and Current Affairs in 2012. She also served briefly as Managing Editor of Investigative for CBC Television, in addition to teaching in the Journalism program at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson). Pugliese is a former president of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), has served on the board of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), and has worked as a journalism trainer in the South Sudan with Journalists for Human Rights (JHR). In 2019, she was selected for the prestigious Martin Wise Goodman Canadian Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University.

“Canadaland’s team of talented storytellers is fearless when it comes to tackling important public debates about media, social issues, and politics,” said Pugliese, in the Canadaland announcement. “They burst onto the media landscape 10 years ago with a single podcast, and have since grown into an impressive network with a strong tradition of enterprise journalism, investigations, and advancing under-reported stories. I am delighted to join their team.”

Pugliese has won numerous awards, including the Gordon Sinclair Award for Broadcast Journalism, the Elias Boudinot Free Press Award from the Native American Journalists Association, and more recently the CAJ’s Charles Bury Award for her “efforts to inspire change in how Canadian journalism covers Indigenous stories.”

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