Gloria Macarenko - BCIT Broadcast
Program trainee; Prince Rupert radio; CKWX early 1980s; host BC portion CBC-TV
newscast News Canada Now 1989-current; appeared as TV reporter in Bingo 1991
and TV host in Maternal Instincts 1996; twice nominated Gemini Awards Best News
Anchor; recipient Radio and Television Directors Association and a Gemini Award
for Best Live News Coverage for five-hour marathon coverage of Swissair Flight
111 crash at Peggy's Cove NS Sept. 2, 1998 while guest anchor on The National
GLORIA AT A GLANCE - 1999
Background: Macarenko's first
broadcasting job was reading the news after school weekdays and weekend
mornings for CHTK Radio in her home town of
She worked for CKWX Radio for two
years as a beat reporter, then took a four-year sabbatical in Spain and France,
where she taught English and studied languages and art history. Returning to
Macarenko was appointed interim
anchor of B.C.'s CBC News Final, as it was then called, in 1988, and went on to
co-host the evening newscast with Kevin Evans through News Final's transition
to Broadcast One in 1995.
1989
Leila Paul is not just a pretty face.
Gloria Macarenko says she's not,
either.
And that's the problem.
Paul's a seasoned reporter who landed
her first TV job in 1972.
In
But Paul, 43, who came to CBC after a
stint as news anchor in St. Orleans, was beaten out for the spot as CBC-TV's
Hired instead was Macarenko, 27, a
former Miss PNE (1978) with fewer journalistic credentials.
Paul has launched a union grievance
and a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Branch that she was discriminated
against on the basis of age.
"If I wanted to work in a pretty
business I'd have become an actress," Paul says. "But I'm a
journalist - and I'm not going to hide my age."
Macarenko admits she has no
television news experience.
"I did enough beat reporting to
be familiar with the important issues," Macarenko told The Province.
Macarenko has been CBC's backup
weather person for 3 1/2 years and has acted in many TV commercials.
She also worked for several years in
radio, but admits "if you stack up credentials, there's no question she's
got more. I don't know why I was hired."
"Gloria is very bright. . . . I
sat down and grilled her mercilessly on the news, on the issues of the day, she didn't put a foot wrong for an hour and a
half."
Macarenko, who started working in
radio news at the age of 17 (she'll be 28 next month), said she's confident of
her reporting abilities and on-air performance.
"I hate it coming down to
defending my credentials," Macarenko said. "I think it comes down to
my being knowledgeable, comfortable and professional, and I think I'm all of
those things."
2002
VANCOUVER -- Former CBC news anchor
Leila Paul said Monday she is deeply disappointed by the Canadian Human Rights
Commission's decision to reject her complaint of age discrimination -- 13 years
after she lost the Vancouver late-night job to Gloria Macarenko.
The case has been bouncing in and out
of the courts and the hands of the commission since Paul first filed her
complaint in 1989. Its history includes a Federal Court ruling that the
commission had bungled the case and a subsequent appeal court ruling that the
whole process should begin again.
Paul worked as weekend news anchor
and as a reporter at CBC, and was 44 when she lost the weeknight job to
Macarenko, who was 27 at the time.