Linden MacIntyre has been a co-host of CBC television's seminal investigative documentary program The Fifth Estate since 1990 and is widely considered one of the best investigative journalists we have in this country. The acclaim is with good reason - MacIntyre has been instrumental to a number of landmark cases in Canada. To take just one example, it was largely as a result of his investigative work through The Fifth Estate, that interest was revived in the wrongful conviction case of Stephen Truscott. His reporting efforts have earned him nine Gemini awards, including three Gordon Sinclair Awards, the distinction given for the best overall broadcast journalist.

Linden MacIntyre started off his journalism career as a newspaper reporter, working in Halifax, Ottawa and Cape Breton, before joining the CBC in 1976. One of his first roles at the CBC was hosting a Halifax based current affairs program called The MacIntyre File during which he successfully initiated a precedent setting legal action which clarified the public's right to access court documents relating to search warrants.

Between 1981 and 1986, MacIntyre worked for CBC's ground-breaking national current affairs program, The Journal, and started covering stories abroad, acting as a foreign correspondent throughout the world, including reporting from the Middle East, Central America and the USSR. 

But perhaps most impressive about Linden is that his talents as a storyteller go beyond his excellent work as a journalist. MacIntyre has also turned his hand to exploring the human condition through fiction, and has authored three best-selling novels, including his 2009 novel The Bishop's Man for which he won the Giller Prize.  

In our conversation Linden touches on his formative years growing up in rural Cape Breton, his early days as a muckraking newspaper reporter, and his thoughts on the challenges facing journalism and the critical role that public service broadcasting plays in sustaining an open and democratic society. 

Hope you enjoy it, listen right below, and remember for all of our interviews, you can always subscribe to our podcast.

Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Brent Bambury was still a teenager when he got his first job in broadcasting as a local sportscaster. And the work he’s pursued as a broadcaster with the CBC since then has truly ran the gamut.  

To give you a sense at just how wide-ranging his career has been, since starting at the CBC, Bambury spent a decade hosting the all night underground alternative music program Brave New Waves, co-hosted the CBC television magazine program Midday, spent three years at the helm of CBC Ottawa’s afternoon drive program All In A Day, co-hosted CBC TV's Test the Nation, and helped create and host several successful and groundbreaking radio shows - including the program he current hosts, Day 6.

Airing Saturday mornings at 10am on CBC Radio One, Day 6 – seems custom-made for someone with such a impressively varied career. It blends journalism, comedy, opinion, culture and current affairs together in one engaging and wide-ranging magazine program. Few hosts can interview everyone from politicians and filmmakers, to musicians and scientists and manage to be insightful and knowledgeable on such a range of topics, but that’s exactly the kind of eclectic and diverse mixture that Brent thrives in.

In his bio on CBC’s website, he writes,  “radio should be kinetic, full of life, fun, outrageous and thoughtful all at the same time" which to me sounds like a fairly good description for Brent himself! In this interview we discuss his early days as a young (and political) all night host of Brave New Waves, the eclectic nature of his career, and his love of the arts.

How would you describe it? His voice.... It's avuncular, gentle -  a sound that seems to exude that idle lingering quality of a Sunday morning, a tone that conveys implicitly  "we have all the time in the world, you and me". It's soothing, reflective. But however you describe it, I think it's safe to say that Stuart McLean has one of the most instantly recognizable voices of any Canadian across this country. And if Dave and Morley are two names with a special meaning for you, then chances are you’re already well acquainted with the folksy charms of Stuart McLean.

From Vancouver Island to St. John’s, Newfoundland, each week roughly a million Canadians tune into CBC Radio to hear Stuart McLean and his program The Vinyl Cafe for its unique blend of humorous short stories, thoughtful heartfelt reflections on Canadian towns and places, and showcasing of home-grown musical talent.

But without a doubt the heart of The Vinyl Cafe, and what has won Stuart McLean such a devoted following of readers and listeners - the factor that draws sold out crowds to auditoriums, and theatres in towns right across this country - are the stories that he writes and performs based around that timeless fictional family of four: Dave – the lovable error prone husband and father,  his mostly understanding wife Morley and their two children Sam and Stephanie. 

The stories centred on these four endearing characters and the extended universe in-which they inhabit are at once wistful and humorous. Although there are laughs, the stories are above all marked by a certain gentleness and humanity. The characters in his fictional universe might not always get things right, they may and certainly do at times exasperate each other, but at their core, they’re trying their best and that's what seems to count.

Maybe it has to do with that previous point, but there’s also something profoundly and distinctly Canadian about Stuart McLean and The Vinyl Cafe. And not just in the way his stories seem to exude a certain Canadian sensibility - a sensibility that celebrates community, kindness and collective spirit - but also in the way he takes the program on the road, weaving across the vast landscape of Canada to perform close to 100 shows a year -  and making a point to visit small, out-of-the-way communities and towns that most tours - especially ones of such impressive draw - would almost never bother stopping in.

Through his opening essays, Stuart often reflects on the unique factors and historical winds that shape a locale, and make it what it is. In fact while on tour he and the crew will often come to towns they're recording in a few days in advance in order to get a sense of what distinguishes, what marks, the people and landscape of the community.  So whether it’s speaking about the St. Lawrence River in Gananoque or the Laurentian Mountains in rural Quebec, Stuart McLean is able to capture the essence of a place, the tides that shaped it, and put it in the larger context of the Canadian story, in a way that few can.

The program first came on the air in 1994, but even before The Vinyl Cafe, Stuart McLean already had an impressive pedigree as a storyteller and broadcaster. He had been a frequent contributor to Morningside (you might remember the infamous case of the inspid cricket that left him and Peter Gzowski in fits of laughter) and he also worked for years as a documentary producer for the program Sunday Morning on CBC radio.

It’s now been 20 years that The Vinyl Cafe, has been on CBC radio, and each year it seems to only get bigger and more beloved, not bad for a show that's a celebration of things humble and small, or as they say at Dave's Record Store "We may not be big, but we're small."  In our conversation Stuart shares the stories of his childhood growing up in Montreal when he felt like an outsider, his struggles as a student, his roundabout beginnings with the CBC, as well reflects on the big feelings he has for this country, and what for him it means to be Canadian.

Listen to our interview with Stuart below & to hear more interviews with iconic CBC voices, subscribe to our podcast

Perhaps one of the most intriguing positions within the world of media is that of the foreign correspondent. There’s a certain romance to it – you travel around the world, report on stories and world events, and see things that few outsiders get to see.  But whatever thrill or excitement the job carries with it, at the end of the day, it’s not many of us who could actually handle leaving behind the comforts of home, and structure, for a chaotic life spent living out of a suitcase and reporting from environments that are often unpredictable and full of turmoil. 

But as a correspondent for CBC’s The National, that is exactly the kind of life that Adrienne Arsenault has taken on.  

Over the past decade, Adrienne’s reporting has taken her to dozens of countries around the world, and seen her cover some of the most seminal events of the new millennium, including reporting on the Arab Spring in Libya in the midst of the uprising, the aftermath of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka, and the disputed 2008 elections in Zimbabwe.

Her reporting has won four Gemini awards, and she was named the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association's journalist of the year in 2005. Now, in this interview, Adrienne speaks about the unique and somewhat strange lifestyle that comes with being a foreign correspondent, how she started off as a reporter at the CBC, and how seeing world events first hand has impacted her.