‘Watching universe unfold’
CBC journalist spent decades covering war zone
Longtime CBC foreign correspondent Joe Schlesinger, who spent decades covering war zones and global events that shaped history, has died.
The public broadcaster says Schlesinger died after a lengthy illness. He was 90.
Fellow journalists, politicians and others were quick to praise him and offer condolences: “With passion, courage and authenticity, Joe Schlesinger brought the news to Canadians, and his contributions to Canadian journalism will not be forgotten,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter. “My condolences to his family and loved ones.” “Look at a map,” tweeted veteran CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge, “and it seems you could point to anywhere and remember a story Joe did from there. Storytelling that few will ever match and in ways that made us all better informed about the planet we live on. You’ve earned your rest Joe.” Canadian journalist Nahlah Ayed tweeted: “Legendary journalist Joe Schlesinger, who brought us the world, has now left it. RIP.” CBC writer and radio host Helen Mann tweeted: “We are all so sad in the newsroom. It was a privilege to know Joe Schlesinger even a little bit. He was one of the world’s finest broadcast journalists, and held in high esteem by those who worked alongside him. And that voice! Condolences to his loved ones.” Schlesinger was born in Vienna in 1928 and raised in former Czechoslovakia.
When Hitler occupied that country in 1938, his parents sent him and his younger brother, Ernie, to England as part of the Kindertransport, organized by Sir Nicholas Winton, that rescued 669 Jewish children. When he returned home in 1945, Schlesinger discovered that his parents had been killed in the Holocaust. Schlesinger appears in and narrates the 2011 documentary Nicky ’s Family, about Winton and the Kindertransport.
He began his career in 1948, with The Associated Press in Prague. When the Communists began arresting journalists in Czechoslovakia two years later, he moved to Canada, attending the University of British Columbia and working at the student newspaper. He also reported for the Vancouver Province and the Toronto Star, and edited for United Press International in London and the International Herald Tribune in Paris.
The award-winning journalist joined the CBC in 1966, becoming executive producer of The National, but was drawn back to reporting as a correspondent in Hong Kong, Paris, Washington and Berlin. Schlesinger’s assignments included covering the Vietnam War, guerrilla wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador, the Iranian Revolution and the first Persian Gulf War. The Order of Canada member retired in 1994 but continued to work as a correspondent and online columnist until 2015. Schlesinger, who received a lifetime achievement award from the Canadian Journalism Foundation in 2009, reflected on his long career in a 2009 interview with The Canadian Press. “I have a career of wandering around the world, watching the universe unfold and actually getting paid for it. It’s like a little boy’s dream.”