Winnipeg journalist blazed trail for female newsroom managers

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/09/2014 (4032 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You should always thank the person who gave you your first real job in your chosen field.

So it’s with some regret that I read of the passing of Shirley Sharzer, a Winnipegger who made a difference in journalism in Canada.

The Globe and Mail ran a detailed account of her life that is worth reading, another great story of a Winnipeg-born talent better known in Toronto for what she accomplished than in her home city.

Born Shirley Lev, she grew up here and started as a newspaper reporter in 1945 at age 17. She eventually worked for the Winnipeg Free Press, married, had a family and then moved to Toronto.

There she worked at the Toronto Telegram, Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail, among other stops in her varied career. She climbed the management ladder in newsrooms where men ruled the roost in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.

She was the associate managing editor of The Globe and Mail in the spring of 1983 when a young student at Carleton University appeared before her as a candidate for the newspaper’s summer intern program.

She noticed that I was wearing a bow tie, and probably thought it was so that I stood out from the other keen journalism students. In fact, it was the only tie I owned.

Whatever the reason, she offered me the position and it launched me on what is now a 31-year-career in newspapers — and counting. I have no idea what might have happened in my life if she had not hired me.

Countless journalists in Canada can tell the same story, because Shirley Sharzer hired many student interns, and mentored many young journalists through their first days and months in a big-city newsroom.

I had not spoken to her since that summer in 1983, and never did properly express my gratitude. Thanks Shirley.