Brian Stewart
Brian Stewart was for decades one of Canada’s most prominent television journalists and was acclaimed for his foreign coverage for both CBC’s The National and The Journal. Born in Montreal and originally a newspaper reporter, Stewart went on to become foreign correspondent for CBC in London and NBC in Frankfurt. He worked in ten war zones, was host of the CBC Foreign Affairs show Worldview, and interviewed many of the historic figures of his time, including Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher, Salman Rushdie, and Henry Kissinger. After retiring, he was appointed Senior Fellow of the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. Stewart is a recipient of the Order of Ontario, the Queen’s Jubilee Medal, and the Order of Canada. He lives in Toronto.
Writers & Books
Award History
2026 - Finalist
Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
forOn the Ground: My Life as a Foreign Correspondent
Jury Citation
“Brian Stewart’s decades covering the world for CBC television news viewers affords him an extraordinary perspective on our times and on Canada’s place in the world. In his memoir On the Ground, Stewart leads us through the frequent intersections of politics and media in his life: from his lucky childhood to his newspaper days covering Trudeaumania and the Front de libération du Québec in Montreal, to an action-packed career abroad. He shows how technology changed the business of news, how pressure can threaten to dismantle journalists’ careers and wellbeing, and how he consistently found himself in the middle of one world-changing story after another.”—2026 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing Jury (Norma Dunning, Chantal Hébert, Paul Wells)Works Recognized by WT