Harewood to continue at CBC Ottawa in addition to new full-time role with Carleton's journalism faculty

Adrian Harewood: the double-duty anchor of CBC Ottawa. (Photo via Chris Roussakis/Carleton University).

(The following is a press release from Carleton University. In addition, Harewood said on Twitter that he will continue to be seen on CBC Ottawa, so fans needn’t worry.)

Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication is thrilled to announce the appointment of CBC Ottawa anchor Adrian Harewood as a full-time member of Carleton’s journalism faculty.

Harewood will take up the new teaching and research position at the level of Associate Professor on July 1. He will become a key member of the team at Canada’s oldest journalism school as it continues with its efforts to counter systemic racism in journalism education and across the Canadian media.

“I am inspired by this critical moment in which we are living,” Harewood said. “The reckoning that we have seen emerge across the Canadian media landscape in the wake of Idle No More,  the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement is historic and unprecedented.

“For the first time that I can recall, Canadian institutions of consequence like Carleton  are committing themselves to reflecting and honoring the diverse reality of 21st century Canada at every level of operation. I know that the journalism program’s leadership is determined to break silences, confront long standing taboos, and will invest the requisite resources to do so,” Harewood said. “This is vital work that has been a long time coming. I look forward to lending my energy and experience to this reforming project.”

Harewood is slated to teach a graduate-level seminar called Journalism, Race and Diversity. His course load is also scheduled to include the capstone course for all of Carleton’s fourth-year journalism undergraduates, called Journalism Now and Next.

Harewood already has plans for a number of research projects and also hopes to establish a journalism training and mentorship outreach program in high schools to create a gateway to journalism studies for BIPOC students.

The head of Carleton’s journalism program, Prof. Allan Thompson, said he was ecstatic about bringing Harewood on board.

“Adrian will be such an important addition to our team,” Thompson said. “He’s already become deeply involved with the journalism program as a part-time instructor and as a member of our permanent working group on anti-racism and inclusion. We are just so, so fortunate to have him join us full-time.”

Harewood has already done some teaching at Carleton as a contract instructor and is about to launch a podcast based on the interactions with guest speakers in his class on journalism and race. SEGUE: a podcast about journalism and race**,** will appear soon.

“I am honored to be joining one of the most respected journalism schools on the continent,” Harewood said.  “Carleton’s J-School has a local, national, and international reputation for excellence that has been built over the last 75 years. I am humbled to now be part of its dynamic faculty.

“I am also excited to continue to work with the next generation of brilliant, driven, critically-minded, empathetic and ambitious journalists. What a privilege that is!  I learned so much from the students I taught this past year. They were a delight! I can’t wait to get started again in September.”In addition to his role as co-anchor at CBC Ottawa, Harewood is a relentless presence on social media, using his Twitter account to lift up other journalists and draw attention to important issues and ground-breaking journalism.

Harewood’s is a journalism career that spans nearly three decades from his early days as a producer and co-host of Special Blend at Carleton’s campus station CKCU in 1994. Over the years he has worked in campus/ community, private and public media and has hosted radio and television programs for local, national and international audiences and has become for many the voice and face of CBC in Ottawa.

A through-line in nearly three decades of Harewood’s work has been the pursuit of greater representation in media. As a student journalist at McGill University in the early 1990s, Harewood tried to make campus media more reflective of ethno-racial diversity in the student body.

He has a long history with campus/community radio, with more than a decade working or volunteering at four different stations including CKCU-FM (Carleton), CHUO-FM (University of Ottawa), CKLN-FM (Ryerson) and CKUT-FM (McGill).

In 1994, Harewood helped lead the Shades of Blackness project at CKCU to produce an entire day of programming during Black History Month, an initiative that won a national community involvement award from the National Campus and Community Radio Association. Harewood became the station manager of CKUT-Radio McGill in 1996. His first foray into television was in the early 2000s as a host/writer for a number of arts programs on BRAVO and PBS including The Actors, The Directors, Playwrights & Screenwriters,  and Literati. And he was the host/contributing writer of a special edition of Hot Type on CBC Newsworld that focused on multiculturalism.

Harewood’s first gig at CBC was as the permanent fill-in host for the nationally-broadcast political debate program Counterspin, hosted at the time by Carol Off. He also became a frequent guest host for As it Happens, The Current, Sounds Like Canada, Metro Morning, Here and Now and Ontario Morning. He produced a special series of  documentary profiles of immigrant artists  for The Arts Tonight with Eleanor Wachtel and later hosted CBC Radio’s FIFA World Cup  Today Soccer Show during the 2010 World Cup. 

In 2006, Harewood returned to his hometown of Ottawa as host of the CBC drive-home show All In A Day. In 2009, he moved to television as the co-anchor of CBC Ottawa News at Six and every weeknight for the last twelve years he has been telling the stories of the diverse communities of the National Capital region. And for the past six years he’s been the host of Our Ottawa, CBC Ottawa’s weekly magazine show.

He shared the Canadian Screen Award for Best Local Anchor with co-host Lucy Van Oldenbarneveld in 2020 and was nominated as Best Interviewer/Host  in 2017.

“I’m really pleased to welcome Adrian Harewood to Carleton’s journalism faculty,’’ said Dean of the Faculty of Public Affairs, Brenda O’Neill. “His track record in journalism and his decades of work to promote greater equity and inclusion in newsrooms is exactly what we need right now.”