Peter Mansbridge celebrates 25 years at The National
Peter Mansbridge is celebrating his 25th anniversary at the helm of CBC’s flagship news show The National. The anchor took a trip down memory lane on his Inside the News blog, describing it as “long journey” of which he is proud.
“Twenty-five years ago tonight I walked down the hallway towards the entrance of Studio Two in the old CBC Television Building on Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto. I'd made the walk before but never this way. I was about to anchor The National as its principal host and chief correspondent for the first time. I was nervous. I'm sure viewers could see my heart pounding through my suit.”
[node:ad]A lot has changed since then, Mansbridge reflected. For one, in the early days, The National ran for 22 minutes followed by The Journal, anchored by Barbara Frum.
“It was a signature hour for the CBC and was resourced that way with both big budgets and very talented people. Lots of things have changed since then, almost all driven by smaller budgets,” Mansbridge said. “Today's hour has less than half the resources and less than half the people working on it than the old one did. Sure we'd love to have more of both and sure we fight with CBC management about money, but we live with what we have and we are proud and confident of the work we do with the resources we do get. And, I sure feel lucky and honoured to still be a part of it all.”
Check out the CBC interactive on 25 years of Peter Mansbridge with The National and the video of his first show as its anchor.
Tamara Baluja is an award-winning journalist with CBC Vancouver and the 2018 Michener-Deacon fellow for journalism education. She was the associate editor for J-Source from 2013-2014.