RTDNA Canada has announced its regional award winners in the East, Central, Prairie and West Regions.
The association has also revealed this year’s Lifetime Achievement honourees which include broadcast news veterans Lis Travers, Sharon Murphy, Eric Rankin, Dave Barry, Harry Forestell, Peter Wugalter, Paul Dunphy, Donna Allen, and Janet Brown.
Lis Travers
The former General Manager for CTV News Channel and CTVNews.ca, Travers also executive produced Canada AM for more than 15 years. Prior to that, she held the position of News Director at CTV Montreal, and has also been a Producer, Executive Producer, and News Director at CBC and Global Quebec.
Travers was previously recognized with the RTDNA President’s Award in 2014 and the RTNDA Distinguished Service Award in 2005.
Sharon Murphy
Sharon Murphy is Global’s Senior Manager of Network Resources and celebrated her 35th anniversary with the network in February. For years, Murphy also coordinated the Global News internship program, providing a first step for hundreds of young journalists beginning their careers.
Harry Forestell
The host of CBC News’ New Brunswick at 6, Harry Forestell started his journalism career as a freelance reporter in the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa, covering breaking news for regional papers and CBC Radio. After stints as a radio producer in Ottawa, Saint John and Windsor, Forestell moved to London, England in 1995 where he established a career as a science and medicine correspondent for several international broadcasters, including BBC World Service and National Public Radio. He later worked as CBC’s European Business Correspondent for Newsworld from 2005-08.
Paul Dunphy
Paul Dunphy has had a 47-year broadcasting career, starting in radio in 1974. Dunphy worked at Calgary stations CFAC-AM (now the Sportsnet The Fan 960) and CHFM-FM as a DJ and commercial announcer/producer, before joining Global Calgary in 1985 as a weather anchor. He’s now celebrating 36 years with the station where he’s been co-anchoring the 5, 6 and 11 pm. newscasts, alongside Linda Olsen since 1995.
Peter Wugalter
An accomplished audio engineer with over four decades of experience in television production, Wugalter has been with Global Edmonton for the last 41 years and is currently Operations Manager, spearheading remote productions and On The Road shows while also managing the Production Center that supports other Global News stations and network shows.
Wugalter also serves as lead audio engineer for the World Curling Federation and has travelled the world assisting with their productions. He has mixed audio for curling and other sports at eight Olympic Games.
Donna Allen
Donna Allen began her career at CBC as a traffic reporter in Halifax, before moving to P.E.I. in 1985 and working as a radio writer-broadcaster. She was soon promoted to producer of the afternoon show, Mainstreet, then producer of the morning show, Island Morning, and for the past decade has served as executive producer of News and Current Affairs for CBC PEI. She’ll retire at the end of May.
Eric Rankin
Eric Rankin’s history in broadcasting goes back to 1974, when he entered BCIT’s broadcast program and started working at CJOR part-time a year later. Rankin also worked at CFVR Abbotsford, CKVU-TV (now Citytv) Vancouver, and KVOS-TV Bellingham, WA before joining the CBC as a TV reporter in August 1984.
Rankin covered the Gulf War for The Journal and CBC News, in addition to the Oka conflict in 1990, the war in Sarajevo, the Westray mine disaster in 1992, and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in 1993. He returned to Vancouver as a producer, working on Pacific Rim Report and Hemispheres, before returning to daily news. Rankin, who announced his retirement in December, was most recently with the CBC News Investigates team in Vancouver.
Dave Barry
Dave Barry is a longtime broadcaster in BC’s interior, beginning his career in 1984 in Lloydminster after attending NAIT. In 1989, he moved his family to Prince George and joined CKPG-TV, as well as 101.3The River (CKKN-FM) and 99.3 The Drive (CKDV-FM). Starting out as a news and sports reporter, he eventually transitioned to television anchoring and in 2008 was made News Director, a position he served in for a decade. Barry moved to Kamloops to become News Director at CFJC in 2018, where he remains today.
Janet Brown
After graduating from the BCIT broadcast journalism program in 1985, Janet Brown worked in radio around B.C. with stops in Nanaimo (CKEG), Merritt (CJNL) and Kamloops (CHNL), before landing at CKNW Vancouver in 1989. She has won numerous awards for breaking news and excellence in radio reporting and has made her mark covering the city of Surrey for much of the past 20 years.
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