Christie Blatchford

Template:Short description Template:Pp-semi-indef Template:Infobox person Christie Marie Blatchford (May 20, 1951 – February 12, 2020) was a Canadian newspaper columnist, journalist and broadcaster. She published four non-fiction books.

Blatchford was Canada's first female sports columnist, reporting on sports between 1975 and 1977. In her 48-year career she worked for all four Toronto-based newspapers, winning the 1999 National Newspaper Award for column writing. She was inducted into the Canadian News Hall of Fame in 2019. Her book Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army also won the 2008 Governor General's Literary Award in Non-fiction.

Early years and family

Blatchford was born in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, the daughter of Kathleen and Ross Blatchford. Her father, who was in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, managed a hockey arena in Noranda. When Blatchford was in grade 11, the family moved to Toronto when her father became manager of the North Toronto Memorial Arena.<ref name=Ryerson /> She attended North Toronto Collegiate Institute, graduating in 1970.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She then studied journalism at Ryerson University, and worked for the student paper The Ryersonian.<ref name=Ryerson>Template:Cite web</ref>

Blatchford had a number of journalists in her family. Her grandfather, Andy Lytle was a sports writer and editor for the Vancouver Sun in the 1920s and again in the 1950s and a sports editor at the Toronto Daily Star in the 1930s and 1940s. Her uncle, Tommy Lytle, was a Toronto Star editor until his retirement in 1974.<ref name="globeobit">Template:Cite news</ref> Her nephew is sports reporter Andy Blatchford.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Career

Blatchford began working part-time for The Globe and Mail in 1972, while still studying journalism at Ryerson, where she graduated at the top of her class. She was hired full-time by the Globe in 1973, working as a general assignment reporter and then as a sports columnist at the paper from 1975 until 1977; she was billed as Canada's first female sports columnist and was at the time one of only six female sports reporters in North America.<ref name="sunobit"/><ref name="globeobit"/> Blatchford's first column "focused on Bobby Hull’s refusal to play in a World Hockey Association game".<ref name="qcbgm">Template:Cite news</ref> In it, she said: "It's the only game in the world we play as good as anyone else. But if we aren't careful, the people who make the decisions are going to take the guts and hardness out of hockey and they will do it because they think it is what we want."<ref name="cbgm1">Template:Cite news</ref>

Displeased when a Globe column was edited against her wishes, Blatchford then abruptly jumped to the competing Toronto Star, where she worked as a feature writer from 1977 to 1982, and began covering criminal trials in 1978, a beat she would return to throughout her career.<ref name="globeobit"/>

Looking to transition from a news reporter to a columnist, Blatchford proposed a light humour column to the Toronto Sun in 1982, chronicling her new relationship with a younger boyfriend, as well as her interactions with other friends and family.<ref name=Ryerson /> The Sun agreed to the proposal, although at a pay cut from her rate at the Star. Her column was originally in the paper's lifestyle section but moved to the high-profile page 5 feature column space previously occupied by Paul Rimstead, following his death in 1987. Blatchford remained at the Sun for 16 years, eventually transitioning back into news reporting and harder news features, by the late 1990s, notably covering high-profile trials such as those of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka.

In 1998, Blatchford moved to the newly launched National Post. In 1999, she received the National Newspaper Award for column writing.<ref>(June 1, 2011). "Journalist Christie Blatchford leaves Globe and Mail for Postmedia", Toronto Star. Retrieved August 24, 2011.</ref> She left the Post to return to The Globe and Mail in 2003, working as a columnist there for eight years.<ref name="globeobit"/>

During four trips to Afghanistan in 2006–07,<ref>Blatchford, Christie (June 25, 2011). "Christie Blatchford: Surrounded by our troops, I’ve never felt so alive ", National Post. Retrieved August 24, 2011.</ref> Blatchford reported on the experiences of Canadian soldiers. Based on these experiences, she wrote the book Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army. The book went on to garner the 2008 Governor General's Literary Award in Non-fiction.<ref name=CBC />

Blatchford returned once again to the National Post in 2011 and would remain there for the rest of her career.<ref name=CBC>(June 1, 2011). "News veteran Christie Blatchford joins Postmedia", CBC News. Retrieved August 24, 2011.</ref> She was also a frequent panelist, commentator, contributor and guest on CFRB radio for several decades.<ref name="globeobit"/>

Blatchford's book Helpless: Caledonia's Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy, and How the Law Failed All of Us, concerning the Grand River land dispute, led to some controversy, including several members of the student body of the University of Waterloo protesting her speaking engagement and leading to its being cancelled on grounds of security.<ref>National Post web siteTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

In an article in the National Post online on August 22, 2011, Blatchford criticized the outpouring of support resulting from the death of federal NDP Leader and the Parliament of Canada's Leader of the Opposition Jack Layton, calling it "a public spectacle",<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and referring to Layton's "canonization". This caused an outcry toward Blatchford herself.<ref>Mac, Amber (August 24, 2011). "Layton’s death reveals the good, the bad and the ugly online", The Globe and Mail. Retrieved August 27, 2011.</ref> Blatchford's commentary on the 2013 suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons also led to Parsons' father accusing Blatchford of victim blaming.<ref>Allison Cross, "‘It’s always about the victim’: Rehtaeh Parsons’ father responds to Christie Blatchford’s column," National Post, February 26, 2013, URL accessed February 26, 2013.</ref>

In June 2018, Blatchford said of a press subsidy: "God forbid Ottawa should start to subsidize newspapers too. As a journalist, the thought gives me the shudders."<ref name="starving">Template:Cite news</ref>

Illness and death

After having to cut short her assignment covering the 2019 federal election campaign due to nagging muscle pain, Blatchford was diagnosed in November 2019 with lung cancer which was found to have metastasized to bones in the spine and hip by the time it was detected. Blatchford was inducted into the Canadian News Hall of Fame the same month, but was unable to attend the ceremony.<ref name="globeobit"/><ref name="sunobit"/>

Blatchford took leave from writing her column and sought treatment at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, where she underwent several months of surgeries, radiation therapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy.<ref name="globeobit"/><ref name="sunobit">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She died in Toronto on February 12, 2020.<ref name=postobit/>

Bibliography

Non-fiction

Humour

In the 1980s, Blatchford published two collections of her humour-oriented Toronto Sun columns.

• Spectator Sports (1986)
• Close Encounters (1988)

Reportage

Beginning in 2007, Blatchford began publishing book-length non-fiction reportage.

• Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army (2007)
• The Black Hand: The Bloody Rise and Redemption of "Boxer" Enriquez, a Mexican Mob Killer (2008)
• Helpless: Caledonia's Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy, and How the Law Failed All of Us (2010)
• Life Sentence: Stories From Four Decades of Court Reporting - Or, How I Fell Out of Love with the Canadian Justice System (2016)

See also

• List of newspaper columnists

External links

• Blatchford interview on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos