culture

Barbara Frum

Image of Barbara Frum

Barbara was born in Niagara Falls, New York on September 8,1937. She grew up in Niagara Falls, Canada.
Barbara’s father owned Rosberg’s Department Store.
Barbara was educated at University of Toronto. After graduation she worked as a radio commentator and
magazine writer. She quickly branched out into print writing articles for the Globe and Mail and the Toronto
Star and briefly for television but radio was where she became recognized on “As it Happens”, a new and
innovative newsmagazine show on CBC radio. Barbara’s skills as a tough, incisive and well-informed
interviewer quickly made the program one of CBC Radio’s most popular and enduring programs (it still airs
today, in virtually the same format), and she continued to host until 1981.
In 1981 CBC television created the Journal, a newsmagazine series that would follow the National each night
at 10:22 p.m, Barbara and Mary Lou Finlay were hired as the show’s hosts. Frum became the sole host of the
program and interviewed many notable people, including British PM Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela.
Throughout her career Barbara won many prestigious awards including, National Press Club of Canada Award
for Outstanding Contribution to Canadian Journalism, and Woman of the Year in the literature arts and
education category, the Order of Canada, numerous Gemini Awards and a library is named in her honour.
Barbara died March 26, 1992 of leukemia.