CBC anchor growing into job

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You can watch her every weeknight at 10 p.m. on CBC Newsworld Tonight. From Kitimat to the heart of Canada's media world, Carla Robinson has come a long way, becoming the first Aboriginal person to anchor a national television newscast.

Television news got her interested in journalism in the first place and it was an Aboriginal reporter, whose name she has forgotten, that inspired her.

"He looked so professional and I said 'Wow, that's what I want to be,'" she said. "I didn't see myself as a TV reporter. But I knew I wanted to be a storyteller."

Her start in writing for news came when she worked in her band's land claims section, photocopying historical documents. In her spare time, she would write up a newsletter and distribute it around the village. The following school year, she took a journalism course and wrote editorials for the school newspaper. The journalism bug had bitten deep. The next summer she told the band's general manager that she would like to be a reporter. She didn't think the request would get anywhere as the village had no newspapers of its own, but the general manager went to the Northern Sentinel, a local community newspaper, and asked if Robinson could be hired as a reporter while the band covered her wages. The paper agreed and Carl got her first professional job when she was just 16.

Employing an Aboriginal reporter turned out to be a smart move for the paper. Robinson's presence in the newsroom helped her get experience and it was also opening doors for the Northern Sentinel.

"I got to write stories on the Native community too, on my relatives and prominent Native people, and for the paper it was their first insight into the Native community," she said.

After graduating from high school, Robinson turned down an opportunity to study at Simon Fraser University because she didn't feel free enough to be herself there.

"I wasn't very excited about going there because I had some experiences in Vancouver. I just didn't feel like I could be myself in Vancouver because people there looked at you as an Aboriginal person. They pegged you and put you somewhere. I wanted the freedom to be just me, Carla Robinson. Carla Robinson: dreamer. Carla Robinson: artistic flake. Carla Robinson: academic scholar. Carla Robinson: me. I just found it so limiting," she said.

She decided on the mass communications program at Carleton University in Ottawa, hoping that this new city would give her a chance to be herself. Just as she was entering her first year, the confrontation at Oka broke out and she found the media's representation of the conflict biased and misleading.

"To me there's no such thing as objective reporting. There's no such thing as non-bias. We all have our biases and the media has its biases," she said. "I enjoyed studying the media critically . . . that's why I was in mass communications."

During her studies she volunteered for the James Bay Cree in Quebec to help them block the Great Whale Project, and met the future premier of Nunavut, Paul Okalik. University was also a time for personal growth, leading Carla to a greater acceptance of all people, realizing that "we were all part of a struggle." She also realized that a university education opened a lot of doors. But after some summer stints as a communications officer in a variety of government departments, she knew that she had to be at the centre of the action and decided to get her Master's Degree in journalism at the University of Western Ontario in London.

"I had a lot of doubt as to my ability to be on television. Am I charismatic enough? Am I spunky enough? I'm not blonde. I'm not perky. I'm not an academic. I'm not somebody who knows it all. I just didn't see myself fitting into the television news world," she said. "Television journalism didn't seem to be my thing. . . [and] I looked around at the television stations in Ontario and nationally and there were no Native people there. They rarely interviewed Native people on their show. I didn't think I would be welcomed into that world. I didn't think I had a place there."

Print journalism offered respect without anyone needing to know she was Aboriginal because the words would stand on their own, but when the television segment of the Master's Program came around Robinson discovered that she had a natural gift for it. She researched past graduates of the program and learned that those who got jobs had done their internships at a television station in North Bay, Ont., and that was where she went.

After the one month was over, she received horrible news from the news director. He was going to fail her because she wasn't aggressive enough for television news. But the news director added insult to injury by saying that "it wasn't her fault because he knew a lot of Native women and they were all gentle and it's not a bad thing."

Her academic advisor told her not to worry because many of Western's best students failed their internships because they got in over their heads, but that it would be a valuable experience. Failing her internship led to Robinson landing her first job right after graduation at BCTV in Vancouver. She knew the interviewer would be looking for an aggressive reporter, so she presented herself that way.

"I told him, 'If there's another Gustafsen Lake, I'll be in there, and I will get you inside information. If you want a story from the downtown Eastside, I'll do it. I'm not afraid to go there or to talk to anyone . . . I know what you want, and I can get it for you.' I projected an image that I knew what they wanted," she said.

But BCTV considered news as entertainment and she found it difficult to get them to air stories on Aboriginal issues because the assignment editor felt that the viewers wouldn't care. She persevered, continuing to pitch stories about Aboriginal people until the assignment editor finally caved in and let her do one about a residential school survivor.

Even so, she learned some basic lessons about televisionnews, one of which was that effective television focused on strong, emotional images.

BCTV didn't renew her contract after it was over because of labor problems and staff cutbacks. She worked as a freelance TV journalist and volunteered for two years on Pressure Point, a live-to-air talk show that focused on many social action themes. Finally, she was using journalism to fight for the underdog and educate the viewing public.

Then came All My Relations, an Aboriginal current affairs show that was broadcast nationally on the CBC. Even though there were only four episodes broadcast of All My Relations, her hosting job led to her current job as the Newsworld anchor.

Robinson is quick to thank those Aboriginal journalists who were pathfinders.

"I don't have the right to turn down opportunities that have been created for me because I know that there are talented Native journalists out there who are older than me who have struggled just to get into the mainstream media . . . it's a monster, it's a machine, it's a very difficult place to reside, and they've paved a lot of road for me," she said. "That's why I'm here. I've worked hard at getting my education, but at the same time the reason I can have my education is because of the Aboriginal people who were there before me, who had limited opportunities because of who they were. They've created the opportunities that I have just because of who I am. It's my responsibility to accept those opportunities . . . to work my butt off in my role."