CBC News is pleased to announce that Rosemary Barton (@rosiebarton) is named as the full-time host for CBC News Network‘s daily political show, POWER AND POLITICS. The show has seen an increase in viewership of more than 50% this fall from the same period last season*, further cementing it as the number-one political talk show on television. *Source: Numeris
Barton has been a regular contributor and guest host on POWER AND POLITICS since 2009. She became the interim host in July 2015, leading the coverage for the show in the run-up to the 2015 federal election.
She hosted six installments of POWER AND POLITICS each week (Monday to Friday, plus an additional election-focused show that aired on Sundays). Barton’s incisive interviews with key figures such as former minister of citizenship and Immigration, Chris Alexander and ex-prime minister Stephen Harper made news and underscored her informed, calm and determined interview style.
“Rosie is a leader and one of this country’s best political journalists,” said Jennifer McGuire GM and Editor-in-Chief, CBC News, English Services. “Her hosting and interviewing skills, seen daily on Power and Politics, have great resonance with the audience - both new viewers and existing viewers. We are thrilled that she has agreed to take this on permanently.”
Barton is a journalist with a long history of excellence in the field. She covered the 2008 and 2011 federal elections, as well as a number of federal leadership campaigns as a national reporter with CBC’s Parliamentary Bureau. She covered the fraud trial of Conrad Black in Chicago in 2007, and more recently the Mike Duffy fraud trial. She also reported on the public inquiry into the dealings between former prime minister Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber in 2008, and the shooting of soldier Nathan Cirillo at the Canadian War Memorial in Ottawa on October 22, 2014.
Barton joined CBC as Quebec’s legislative reporter at the National Assembly in 2004. She covered Jean Charest’s arrival as premier in Quebec as well as the intense leadership race within the Parti Quebecois that followed the resignation of Bernard Landry. She covered a number of provincial elections in Quebec both with CBC News and Global News.
Barton was in Montreal on the day of the shooting at Dawson College where she was one of the first reporters on the scene reporting live. She started her journalism career in her home town of Winnipeg as a researcher for CBC’s French news network, RDI.
POWER AND POLITICS currently airs Monday to Friday at 5 p.m. ET (2 p.m. PT, 5:30 p.m. NT) on CBC News Network.
Fans can engage with POWER AND POLITICS through the @PnPCBC Twitter account, as well the CBC Politics Facebook page and the CBC Politics page.
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About CBC News
For more than 75 years, CBC has been the source Canadians turn to, to keep them informed about their communities, their country and their world. Through regional and national programming on multiple platforms, including CBC Television, CBC News Network, CBCRadio, CBCNews.ca, mobile and on-demand, CBC News and its internationally recognized team of award-winning journalists deliver the breaking stories, the issues, the analyses and the personalities that matter to Canadians.
About CBC/Radio-Canada
CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcaster and one of its largest cultural institutions. The Corporation is a leader in reaching Canadians on new platforms and delivers a comprehensive range of radio, television, internet, and satellite-based services. Deeply rooted in the regions, CBC/Radio-Canada is the only domestic broadcaster to offer diverse regional and cultural perspectives in English, French and eight aboriginal languages.
A space for us all is CBC/Radio-Canada’s new strategy to modernize the public broadcaster and ensure that it continues to fulfill its mandate for Canadians and for future generations.Through to 2020, it will increase its investment in prime time television programming, and continue to create radio programs of the highest quality, while promoting the development of digital and mobile platforms and content.
For further information, please contact:
Nicola Makoway, publicist, CBC News
