Paula Todd

Paula Todd is a Canadian journalist, investigative reporter, broadcaster, lawyer and author. She is a professor of broadcast and print journalism at Seneca College, and is a frequent speaker on reporting, literacy and freedom of the press.

Todd sits on the Board of Directors of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and chairs its Digital Issues Committee. In 2012, she travelled with Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams to Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico as a journalist embedded with the Nobel Women's Initiative's investigation into escalating attacks on women and human rights defenders.

In 2012, she published an eBook about Canadian serial killer Karla Homolka. She was commissioned in 2012 to write two non-fiction books for publishing house McClelland & Stewart.^{[citation needed]}

Education

Todd earned her Bachelor of Arts in English literature from York University. She served as co-editor of the University's community newspaper Excalibur, where she led a successful campaign to secure independent funding for the student press. She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1988.^[1] She was called to the Bar of the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1990.^[2]

Career

Todd entered broadcasting after more than a dozen years at the Toronto Star, where she worked as a reporter, feature writer and political correspondent. Throughout her last four years at the Toronto Star, she also served as an editorial writer and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board.

At TVOntario, she and Steve Paikin co-hosted the nightly newsmagazine Studio 2 for 10 years. She also hosted and co-produced Person 2 Person with Paula Todd, an interview program first broadcast in 2000. She was hired by CTV News Channel, where she did investigative reporting and hosted The Verdict with Paula Todd^[3] a prime-time legal and justice affairs program, and was an investigative reporter for CTV News. The debut episode of The Verdict was broadcast on 15 March 2007^[4] from Chicago, where the show was covering United States v. Conrad Black, the criminal fraud trial of Conrad Black.^[1]

Todd has written for numerous publications, including The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Macleans Magazine, Elm Street Magazine, Canadian Living and Law Times.

Todd served as a judge for the National Newspaper Awards, the Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE) Awards, is a National Magazine Award nominee, and won the Paramedic Association’s Media Award for public education. She is a literacy advocate, 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 serves on the board of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, and is the author of the book A Quiet Courage: Inspiring Stories from All of Us 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]

Karla Homolka story

In 2012, she wrote a book chronicling Todd's search for and eventual discovery of Karla Homolka several years after she had been released from prison.^[8] Todd found Homolka living in a small apartment in Guadeloupe with her husband Thierry Bordelais and three children, and using the alias Leanne Bordelais. Todd spent an hour with Homolka, during which they spoke about various subjects, including her sense of safety, her children and Canadians' attitude toward her. On 21 June 2012, she published her interview and observations in the ebook Finding Karla: How I Tracked Down an Elusive Serial Child Killer and Discovered a Mother of Three published by Canadian Writers' Group.

Works

• A Quiet Courage: Inspiring Stories from All of Us. Midpoint Trade Books. 2004. ISBN 9780887621550. 
• Finding Karla: How I Tracked Down An Elusive Serial Child Killer. Canadian Writers Group/The Atavist. 2012. 

References

External links

• Paula Todd on Twitter
• Paula Todd Official Site
• Paula Todd (speakers.ca)