Earl Cameron (June 12, 1915 – January 13, 2005) was a Canadian broadcaster and was anchor of
CBC's ''
The National'' from 1959 to 1966.
Biography
Cameron was born in
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
Moose Jaw is the fourth largest city in Saskatchewan, Canada. Lying on the Moose Jaw River in the south-central part of the province, it is situated on the Trans-Canada Highway, west of Regina. Residents of Moose Jaw are known as Moose Javians ...
in 1915, and, as a student, found a summer job at a local radio station,
CHAB. He established a career in broadcasting before joining the main
CBC Radio
CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...
network in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
in 1944 where he was assigned as reader of the daily ''CBC National News Bulletin'' following
Lorne Greene
Lorne Hyman Greene (born Lyon Himan Green; 12 February 1915 – 11 September 1987) was a Canadian actor, musician, singer and radio personality. His notable television roles include Ben Cartwright on the Western ''Bonanza'' and Commander Ad ...
's departure from the CBC as the "Voice of doom". It was Cameron who announced the
D-Day invasion of Normandy to Canadian listeners. As an announcer his other duties included reading commercials, station identifications and hosting various programs.
During this period CBC followed the example of the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
in giving responsibility for reading the news to announcers rather than to journalists, an approach that became entrenched by union regulations.
In 1959, Cameron succeeded
''). During the 1960s, managers at CBC News moved towards a philosophy of regarding news announcers as journalists rather than performers. As part of this shift, the news service management put pressure on the announcers union to accept an agreement prohibiting news readers from commercials or accepting outside contracts with ad agencies. Cameron was personally pressured to terminate his outside announcing contracts reading commercials for products such as Crest toothpaste and Rambler automobiles and agreed in 1965 to give up his lucrative ad contracts. However, the next year, Cameron was dropped as the anchor of the ''National News'', due to management's desire to have a professional journalist in the position of news anchor. Cameron was replaced by broadcast journalist
, although he continued as an announcer on CBC radio and television until his retirement in 1976. One of his duties was as the host of ''Viewpoint'', a nightly five-minute programme which followed ''The National'' in which Cameron read letters from viewers.
'' was named after Earl Cameron, but otherwise bore no resemblance to Cameron — the name was merely an offhand joke designed to get a laugh from Canadian viewers. (The same is true of Camembert's coanchor
, on January 13, 2005.