Bill Cameron

Who was Bill Cameron?

William Lorne "Bill" Cameron was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and grew up in Vancouver, La Jolla, California and Ottawa. A Gemini Award and National Magazine Award winner, he was a writer, author, documentary reporter/producer, TV current affairs host/interviewer, radio broadcaster, newspaper columnist and reporter and TV news anchor.

In 1965, Cameron abandoned his studies in English literature at the University of Toronto to pursue an acting career in New York. From that base, he began freelancing for CBC Radio as an arts and entertainment critic/reviewer. He later returned to Toronto and moved to the Toronto Star where, at 25, he was a columnist and member of the Star editorial board. In 1970, Cameron was part of a group of young researchers with Senator David Croll's Senate Committee studying poverty in Canada. The four resigned from their jobs, disenchanted with the direction of Croll's committee, and wrote, "The Real Poverty Report." Cameron moved to Maclean's Magazine where he was a writer and associate editor.

In 1974, Cameron was hired by Global Television in Toronto to write, report and host for the fledgling national network. He became host of a program called "Newsweek", before being hired in 1978 by Moses Znaimer, owner of Toronto's CITY-TV, to anchor the hour-long newscast, CITYPULSE at 10. Cameron left CITY-TV in September, 1983, when talks for his next contract collapsed over issues of salary and style. He was hired almost immediately by Mark Starowicz, then Executive-Producer of the CBC daily current affairs program The Journal. Cameron split his duties between on-air hosting and documentary reporting and remained with The Journal until its demise in 1992. During this period, he also periodically hosted MIDDAY, CBC's national noon-hour talk show. With the cancellation of the Journal, Cameron moved over to the local television supper hour program, called CBC Evening News, as anchor, and led the newsroom to its 1995 Gemini-award win as Best Local News Program. In 1995, Cameron was hired by CBC Newsworld to front the news network's national morning program, CBC Morning, out of Halifax, which he did until September 1998. Back in Toronto, he anchored Sunday Report, CBC's National weekend news program, while hosting his own current affairs program on Newsworld during the week. In 1999, Cameron left the CBC for good, when contract talks collapsed, and found refuge temporarily as the communications vice-president for an online financial marketing firm. This brief corporate career ended in 2000 and he returned to journalism and writing, working as a reporter and columnist for The National Post for just over one year until late 2001. During this time, he was awarded the chair in journalism ethics at Ryerson University's school of Journalism, and taught at Ryerson and its Chang School of Continuing Education. Throughout this time, Cameron was an occasional substitute host on CBC Radio's Sunday Morning, on CBC Radio's flagship daily current affairs program As It Happens and on Morningside, CBC's daily radio current affairs program,