Ravens Swimmer Gillian Carr Awarded Gordon Sinclair Foundation 2009 Fellow.
Gordon Sinclair Foundation selects PEI Journalist Gillian Carr
by Allan Thompson
(Ottawa) -On the 25th anniversary of Gordon Sinclair’s passing in 1984, the Gordon Sinclair Foundation is pleased to announce the selection of Gillian Carr, who is about to graduate from Carleton University’s Bachelor of Journalism program, as the winner of the 2009 Gordon Sinclair Fellowship. One of the legacies of Sinclair’s career is the Foundation that bears his name and which has helped educate a generation of young journalists.
The Foundation and the annual fellowship that it awards to a promising young journalism school graduate were established in 1984 by friends of the legendary journalist and broadcaster to honour his memory and recognize his contributions to Canadian journalism. Gordon Sinclair was a remarkable journalist, author, radio commentator and television personality who until his death in 1984, was one of Canada’s most enduring celebrities. He earned that celebrity during a career that included periods with the Toronto Star newspaper, CFRB radio and as a panelist on CBC’s long-running Front Page Challenge.
Carr, 22, will use the $15,000 award to take up an offer to join a Masters program in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of St. Andrew’s, in Scotland. Carr is graduating from Carleton’s journalism program with a double major in political science, a concentration in international relations and a minor in Spanish. At St. Andrew’s she plans to conduct research into the role of the media in post-conflict reconstruction, particularly in contexts where media and journalists were used as a weapon of war or tool of fear during the conflict. The conflict studies program at St. Andrew’s provides a guided fieldwork experience for students in a post-conflict and development setting. Carr hopes to examine the role of media in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. St Andrews is Scotland’s first university and the third oldest in the English speaking world, founded in 1413.
“Gordon Sinclair was famous for his frank candor and expressing his opinions about controversial subjects,” Carr said. “His legacy lives on in his work and has continued to have timeless relevance, especially with the re-emergence of his famous piece “The Americans” after September 11th and Hurricane Katrina.
“I like to think that he would be very interested today in the role the media can play in rebuilding societies after disasters and conflict.”
Gordon Sinclair informed, agitated and entertained two generations of Canadians and Americans too as reporter and commentator in the newspaper and on radio and TV. He died May 17, 1984 at the age of 84 shortly after collapsing on his way home from his daily radio broadcasts on CFRB radio.
Sinclair Foundation President Don Johnston said: “If Gordon were alive today he would be pleased that so many young Canadians have been able to travel the world and study in some of the countries he covered as a roving correspondent in the 1930s.” Johnston, who worked with Sinclair at CFRB NEWS, added that Sinclair was always interested in young people.
The Sinclair Foundation’s Executive Director, Allan Thompson, who won the first Fellowship in 1986, said that Fellowship entries came from journalism schools across Canada. Carr is the 22nd person to be named a Gordon Sinclair Fellow since the fellowship was first awarded in 1986. The previous two winners have been graduates of Ryerson University’s journalism program.
Over the years, many Sinclair fellows have gone on to make their mark as Canadian journalists, a number of them following in Sinclair’s footsteps and reporting from exotic locales. Sinclair fellowship winners have worked for news organizations around the world, including the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Canadian Press, Bloomberg News, Reuters News Agency, South China Morning Post, The Times of London, BBC, The Independent, Forbes magazine, the Chicago Tribune and others.
While Sinclair Fellows are expected to engage in studies that will enrich their capabilities as journalists, whether or not the fellowship year leads to an academic degree or other formal qualification during the fellowship year is a matter of personal choice. But Fellows are expected to use their research to produce a major essay on a topic of current interest in the field of journalism.
The total value of the Gordon Sinclair Fellowship is $13,000 in Canadian funds, with an additional award of $2,000 paid upon acceptance by the Foundation of the Gordon Sinclair Memorial Essay at the conclusion of the fellowship year.
For more information about the Gordon Sinclair Foundation visit the website of the foundation at: www.GordonSinclairFoundation.ca
For further contact: Allan Thompson, Executive Director, Gordon Sinclair Foundation
Mobile: 613-799-1791 email: allan_thompson@carleton.ca
