Newman signs off Global National

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This article was published 21/08/2010 (5872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kevin Newman, anchor and executive editor of Global National for nearly a decade is, well, tired. Tired of reporting bad news. Tired of hosting a show that’s "one step away from the abyss" every night. And tired of observing the world from the fast lane.

That doesn’t mean the award-winning journalist is retiring from the news business altogether — or retreating to a cabin by a lake with a book and a bottle of fine wine (although he does want to catch up on his reading). Far from it.

The 51-year-old native of Toronto has simply decided he has done all he can at Global National, the nightly suppertime newscast he left ABC News in New York nearly 10 years ago to bring into being, and which he has anchored every since.

It’s time to change his focus — and his lifestyle.

"I want to read more books," Newman said, before his final newscast from Ottawa on Friday. "I want to exercise more regularly." (Although it must be said, his muscular physique and good looks have attracted more than a few adoring fans). "I want to learn to observe by standing still, as opposed to running by it quickly, which I’ve done for most of the last 30 years. I want to rest, and I want to think a lot about the future."

He also wants to continue making documentaries, and to branch out into new media, among other projects that will likely keep retirement a long way off.

Newman got his start in journalism 27 years ago, as a coffee boy and runner at Global Toronto. He worked his way through the ranks, eventually reporting from Queen’s Park and Ottawa, before moving to CTV in 1986 to become the network’s parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa.

Recruited to U.S.

He then joined CBC as a reporter and anchor for the program Midday, before being recruited in 1994 by ABC in New York to anchor and co-host Good Morning America, where he won the international Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting.

In 2001, he was lured back to Canada by the offer of heading up a new national newscast at Global. He anchored the station’s live coverage of the 9/11 tragedy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Barack Obama’s election as U.S. president, and, in the process, won two Gemini Awards for Best News Anchor, adding to his two Emmy Awards.

But the transition from seven years in a well-financed American newsroom wasn’t easy, he recalls: "I was accustomed to things working all the time because they were well-resourced. This show (Global National) has always been one step from the abyss every night, because it’s so early (it airs at 5:30 p.m., versus CBC and CTV’s 10 and 11 p.m. newscasts), it has relatively few resources, and the only thing that prevents our viewers from seeing it is the quality of the people behind the camera to rescue it every day. Over time, that’s stressful for the people who work on it, and probably helps contribute to the fatigue that I feel."

Newman says covering death and destruction night after night has taken a toll.

With Global National behind him, which he says "will probably end up being my legacy project out of my career," what comes next, Newman isn’t entirely sure of.

"I’m not closing the door on anything at this point."

But he says realizing his own mortality had a hand in his decision.

"(Turning 50) was the time that I could see the wall ahead of me. Once you have a sense of mortality, if you haven’t had it by the time you’re 50, you suddenly begin focusing on the living that is left, and what you want to do with that. Both things combined to bring me to the point where I thought, another five or 10 years, am I going to make much of a difference here? Probably not. Can I make a difference doing other things? More likely."

— Postmedia News