Paula Todd

Paula Todd is a Canadian journalist, investigative author, broadcaster, and lawyer. She is a professor of broadcast journalism and digital media at Seneca College, and is a frequent speaker on cyberabuse, Internet culture, writing, 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 has also published several other books, including Extreme Mean: Trolls, Bullies and Predators Online in 2014. The book was a shortlisted nominee for the 2014 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction and the 2015 Arthur Ellis Award for non-fiction.

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 from York University with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1982, and 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

Soon after graduating in 1982, she was hired by the Toronto Star, where she worked as a reporter, feature writer, and political correspondent.^[3] During her last four years at the Toronto Star, she also served as an editorial writer and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board.^[3]

In 1996, she was hired by TVOntario, where she and Steve Paikin co-hosted the nightly newsmagazine Studio 2 for 10 years.^[3] She also hosted and co-produced Person 2 Person with Paula Todd, an interview program first broadcast in 2000.^[3] She was hired by CTV News Channel, where she did investigative reporting and hosted The Verdict with Paula Todd^[4] a prime-time legal and justice affairs program, and was an investigative W5 reporter for CTV News. The debut episode of The Verdict was broadcast on 15 March 2007^[5] 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.^[6]

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.^[7]

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.^[8]

Writing

In 2012, Todd wrote a book chronicling her search for and eventual discovery of Karla Homolka several years after Homolka had been released from prison.^[9] Todd found Homolka living in a small apartment in Guadeloupe, with her husband Thierry Bordelais and three children, where she was using the alias Leanne Bordelais. Todd spent an hour with Homolka, during which they spoke about various subjects, including Homolka's sense of safety, her children and Canadians' attitude toward her. On 21 June 2012, Todd 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.

She was commissioned in 2012 to write two non-fiction books for publishing house McClelland & Stewart.. In 2014, McClelland&Stewart/Random House published Todd's third non-fiction book, Extreme Mean: Trolls, Bullies and Predators Online, which was shortlisted by the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-Fiction in 2014^[10] and the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Non-Fiction in 2015.^[11]

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. 
• Extreme Mean. McClelland&Stewart/Random House. 2014. 

Notes

References

External links

• Paula Todd Official Site
• Todd, Paula (11 June 2014). "Cyberstalkers, revenge-porn creeps, and other tales from the World Wide Hate Machine". National Post. Retrieved 21 September 2014.