Peter Kent

Infobox Person
name = Peter Kent


image_size =
caption =
birth_date = birth date and age|1943|7|27
birth_place = Sussex, England
death_date =
death_place =
occupation = News Editor
spouse = Cilla Kent
parents = Aileen Kent
Parker Kent
children = Trilby Kent

Peter Kent (born July 27, 1943) is Deputy Editor of Global Television News, a Canadian TV network. He has previously worked as a news editor, producer, foreign correspondent and news anchor on Canadian and American television networks.

Journalism career

Kent began his career as a radio journalist in the early 1960s. He then moved to television, joining Calgary station CFCN in 1965 and subsequently worked for CBC Television, CTV, Global, NBC and the "Christian Science Monitor"'s television newscast.

In the 1966, he went to South East Asia to cover the Vietnam War as a freelance foreign correspondent. He stayed on to cover the final withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam in 1973 and covered the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge in 1975. [ [http://www.toronto.ca/inquiry/inquiry_site/gg/bio_pdf/Kent_Peter_bio.pdf Peter Kent biography] , accessed January 9, 2008] Kent returned to Canada and worked as a producer for "The National" and, in 1976, he became the broadcast's anchor after Lloyd Robertson moved to CTV News.

In 1978 Kent agreed to step down as anchor of "The National" after he submitted an intervention to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) recommending that the Corporation's licence not be renewed until management created procedures and protocols to prevent political interference in the CBC's editorial decision-making. Kent's complaint involved messages conveyed through the then CBC President Al Johnson from the Prime Minister's Office that resulted in cancellation of a speech by Premier René Lévesque and coverage of a speech by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. As a result of his intervention and descent from "The National" anchor desk, Kent accepted assignment to the newly created African Bureau of the CBC, located in Johannesburg.

The CBC subsequently created protocols to govern Prime Ministerial access to the public broadcaster. They remain in effect today; the most recent example the speech made to the country by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien on the eve of the 1995 Quebec referendum. Kent returned briefly in 1978 to testify at a grievance hearing initiated by an unsuccessful anchor candidate who complained that Knowlton Nash, the vice-president of CBC News, had appointed himself to succeed Kent. In that testimony Kent -- the first journalist to anchor "The National" -- supported Nash's credentials.

Kent returned to Canada and the CBC in 1982 as a founding producer, correspondent and occasional co-host of "The Journal", hosted by Barbara Frum and Mary Lou Finley.

In 1984 Kent moved back to NBC serving in Miami, Washington and New York bureaus and as the US network's senior European correspondent in the late 1980s, winning four Emmy nominations with the network. He then reported for and was back-up anchor for John Hart and John Palmer at the "Christian Science Monitor"'s "World Monitor" television news service. One of Kent's feature report series - on challenges in American inner cities - was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Award.

Kent returned to Canada to join Global News in 1992, and was the anchor of its flagship news program "First National" until 2001. He then anchored the business news show "MoneyWise" on Global and Prime.

Awards

Kent was named the recipient of the 2006 President’s Award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association of Canada (RTNDA). The President’s Award is presented annually to honour individuals, stations, companies or groups who have brought distinction to, or have made major contributions to the broadcast news industry. Kent is a member of Canada’s Broadcast Hall of Fame, former director of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, four-time Emmy nominee and the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award.

Political career

In the Canadian federal election, 2006, Kent ran as the Conservative Party of Canada candidate in the Toronto riding of St. Paul's. He placed second with 25.76% of the vote against the incumbent, Carolyn Bennett of the Liberals (50.25%), and ahead of Paul Summerville of the New Democratic Party (19.19%).

Peter Kent is currently the candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada in the suburban Toronto riding of Thornhill for the next federal election.

Kent is a member of the board of Canadian Coalition for Democracies [Goodard, John, "PM's new recruit urged to clarify views", "Toronto Star", January 8, 2007] and has represented them at public events such as a demonstration supporting publication of the controversial Muhammed cartoons. [ [http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/03/11/demonstrators-toronto060311.html "Toronto marchers back right to publish Muhammad cartoons"] , CBC News, March 11, 2006, retrieved March 11, 2008]

Kent is a member of the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame and a past member of the Board of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. He is also a Founding Supporter of Canadians for Defence and Security and a member of the board of the revitalized ParticipACTION.

He is a board member of Honest Reporting Canada, and co-Chair of Ontario Cabinet for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Family

Peter Kent is the son of Parker Kent, a long-time employee of the Southam Newspaper Group who retired as associate editor at the "Calgary Herald". His younger brother, Arthur Kent, is also a journalist, known in the first Gulf War as the "scud stud".

Kent has been married to Cilla, a former print journalist with South Africa's Argus group for over 26 years. They have a daughter, Trilby who works as a freelance journalist and writer in Brussels.

References

External links

* [http://www.PeterKent.ca Peter Kent]