| Paula Todd | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation | journalist, lawyer and author |
Paula Todd is a Canadian journalist, lawyer and author, currently an investigative reporter for W5. She was the founding host of "The Verdict with Paula Todd"[1] a prime-time legal and justice affairs program on CTV News Channel. Prior to joining CTV News in 2007, Todd was the host and co-producer of Person 2 Person with Paula Todd, a TV Ontario interview program first broadcast in 2000. She had previously co-hosted the nightly, Gemini-award-winning newsmagazine Studio 2 with Steve Paikin for 10 years before that show was cancelled in June 2006. Todd has written for numerous publications, including The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Elm Street Magazine, Canadian Living, and The Law Times.
Todd earned her Bachelor of Arts in English literature from York University. She had served as co-editor of the University's student newspaper Excalibur, a role she had initially "only wanted to get ... on her resume in order to beef it up for her application to law school"[2] She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1988.[3] She was called to the Bar of the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1990.[4]
Todd entered broadcasting after more than a dozen years at Canada’s largest newspaper, the Toronto Star, where she worked as a reporter, feature writer and political correspondent. Throughout her last four years at the Toronto Star, she served as an editorial writer and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board.
Todd served as a judge for the National Newspaper Awards, the Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE) Awards and was nominated for a 'National Magazine Award' in 2003. She is the 2004 recipient of the Paramedic Association’s Media Award for public education, and served on the Board of Directors of Integra, an organization that assists children and teens with learning disabilities, a cause she supports.[5]
She is the author of the book A Quiet Courage: Inspiring Stories from All of Us (ISBN 978-0887621550), which was published in 2004. It was based on Person 2 Person.[6]
A frequent contributor to radio and television before joining TVO, Todd was a regular host on CBC Newsworld's 'Face Off', appeared as a frequent Global TV and CBC panelist, and also as a political analyst for CBC Radio in Toronto and Ottawa. Her contract with CTV News began on 1 March 2007.[7]
The debut episode of The Verdict was broadcast on 15 March 2007[8] from Chicago, where the show was covering United States v. Conrad Black, the criminal fraud trial of Conrad Black.[3]