Canada's news anchor offers advice for cubs
By Leanna Roy
News
Editor
July 13, 2010
Over 3,000 graduating students gathered in the St. Denis Centre to be honoured in the 2010 Spring Convocation where Peter Mansbridge and four other honorary degree recipients made an appearance.
UWindsor has recognized Mansbridge’s commitment to inform Canadians about their world and has received his second honorary degree without ever graduating from high school. He has conducted interviews with some of the most influential figures that exist today including Barack Obama, Wayne Gretzky and Margaret Thatcher.
It’s hard to believe that before he was one of the top names in journalism, Mansbridge worked as a baggage handler in Churchill, It was there his raw talent was first discovered while he was heard announcing flight times.
In an exclusive interview with The Lance, Mansbridge explained that the field of journalism isn’t for everyone. “You really have to love what you’re doing to be in this industry,” he stated.
As a young reporter, Mansbridge worked his way up the journalistic food chain from radio and television reporting, to anchor of CBC's the National. “Everybody wants my job right away, but it doesn’t work that way, you have to work your way up,” he explained.
As his career took off, technology was quickly evolving, which Mansbridge maintains was both good and bad for his role in the media. “You have to get everything right,” he stated “and you have little time to check facts. Technology has really advanced in terms of what we [journalists] can do but it’s also given us a great deal of pressure.”
Mansbridge has covered and anchored some of the most relevant stories including the Gulf War, 9/11 and the beginning of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the funeral of Princess Diana, and the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama.
Mansbridge explains that when covering important world news, “there is always a certain amount of adrenaline running through you,” and rather than fold under pressure, he uses this to his advantage to fuel the interview.
He also discussed the thin line that the media must avoid crossing when covering national and international tragedy. “If there are hundreds of thousands of people dying right in front of your television its pretty awful to look at, but you can motivate people to act and do something about it,” stated Mansbridge.
“So the line there is different from say covering a car accident. What is the point in showing those pictures other than to say a car crashed and two people died?” Thus, for Mansbridge, the deciding factor between covering and not covering an event is whether or not it motivates action.
“A good interview is when you really learn something from it and it’s a conversation,” said Mansbridge. “Where you are really listening to what the person has to say and following with questions that come out of the answers that you’ve just heard.” |
