Preparing for life after Mansbridge
A closer look at The National’s four new hosts
CBC has selected a diverse foursome to oversee its flagship news program The National.
Adrienne Arsenault, Rosemary Barton, Andrew Chang and Ian Hanomansing will share the host responsibilities of the nightly broadcast, which will go live from studios in Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto.
Each of them comes with unique experience within the public broadcaster. Here’s a glimpse at their credentials and what each hopes to bring to the newscast:
Adrienne Arsenault
Age: 50
Birthplace: Toronto
Education: Bachelor of arts and journalism degrees from Western University in London, Ont.
Career: Starting at the CBC in 1991, she served as an editorial assistant at The National before moving on to postings in Vancouver, Washington, Jerusalem and London. She won a 2015 Emmy Award for her coverage of the Ebola crisis and has covered Olympic Games in Sydney, Salt Lake City, Beijing, Sochi and Rio.
More recently, she’s played a key role in format experiments at The National with multi-night specials on fake news, political strife in the Philippines and coverage of terror attacks in Paris and Brussels.
Quote: “For me, I’m fascinated in particular by the ethics behind the algorithms that rule our world. I don’t think we spend enough time looking at them. I think it’s time to take a closer look at that.”
Rosemary Barton
Age: 41
Birthplace: Winnipeg
Education: French literature degree from College Universitaire de Saint-Boniface in Winnipeg; journalism master’s degree from Carleton University in Ottawa.
Career: Barton climbed the ranks of the broadcaster, starting in Winnipeg as a researcher for CBC’s French news network before taking a job as the Quebec legislative reporter at the National Assembly in 2004. She went on to cover the trials of Conrad Black in 2007 and Mike Duffy in 2015, as well as the shootings at Parliament Hill in 2014. Barton has more recently become the face of Power & Politics, sitting down with Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau and calling out other politicians for double speak. She also booked an exclusive TV interview with Omar Khadr.
Quote: “We have a very big Indigenous unit at CBC, but I would like to see more of it on The National. Stories about Indigenous communities that have problems and ones that are succeeding. It’s not under-reported, but it could be reported in a way that has a bigger impact.”
Andrew Chang
Age: 34
Birthplace: Ottawa
Education: Journalism degree at Carleton University.
Career: Chang has worked in various cities for the CBC, starting with Montreal where he co-hosted the dinner-hour newscast and handled major events like Montreal’s coverage of the 2011 election, which saw the rise of the NDP in the province, and the Dawson College shootings. He joined CBC News in Vancouver three years ago where he occasionally stepped in as host of CBC Radio One’s The Current.
The reporter has also filled the anchor role at The National a number of times during the summer months.
Quote: “With the speed at which news develops today, it ends up being this freight train — here’s what happened there and that’s what you need to know, here’s a clip. I think all of us want to go so much deeper than that. What this format will allow us to do is give us the latitude and time … to work on those stories and develop them.”
Ian Hanomansing
Age: 55
Birthplace: Port of Spain, Trinidad
Education: Political science and sociology degrees at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B.; law at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Career: Growing up in Sackville, Hanomansing took a job with CBC Halifax in 1986 after cutting his teeth at smaller radio stations in Moncton, N.B., and Halifax. He has pivoted from roles as anchor and reporter over the years, handling breaking stories like the Exxon Valdez oil spill and Vancouver’s Stanley Cup riots. He’s also overseen a number of live special programs about drugs on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and currently hosts an hour-long evening news program on CBC News Network.
Quote: “Interesting stories about our ordinary lives, I think, really good media organizations capture. When you read the Sunday New York Times and there’s a story about something where you think, ‘Hey, I’ve been wondering about that all the time.’ Sometimes it’s a minor thing about your lifestyle, sometimes it’s more important. It doesn’t always have to be the big investigative story.”