Barbara Frum

Barbara Frum, OC (September 8, 1937 – March 26, 1992) was an American-born Canadian radio and television journalist, acclaimed for her interviews for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Personal life

Barbara Frum was born Barbara Rosberg in Niagara Falls, New York, the oldest of three children of Harold Rosberg and Florence Hirschowitz Rosberg. Her family is Jewish. Frum's father, who was born in Kielce, Poland, immigrated to Canada as a child with his parents in 1913, and was the proprietor of Rosberg's Department Store in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Frum's mother was born in New York City, and moved to Canada in 1935, the year she got married. Frum grew up in Niagara Falls, Ontario. While in High School Barbara served on the Student Council. She was also a member of Theta Kappa Sigma, Alpha Chapter, her high school sorority. She studied history at the University of Toronto, where she graduated with a BA in 1959. In 1957, she married Toronto dentist Murray Frum, who later became a real-estate developer. They had two children and adopted a third, an Indigenous child, Matthew. Her daughter, Linda Frum, was a Canadian senator and a member of the Canada-Israel Committee, and her son, David Frum became a political journalist and, after he moved to the United States, was a speechwriter for George W. Bush.

Career

After her graduation, Frum undertook volunteer work in the community and began writing for the ''Toronto Star'' as a freelancer, specializing in social-issues stories. In 1971, she joined CBC Radio as one of the first hosts of ''As It Happens'', a newsmagazine program which used the telephone to conduct live interviews with newsmakers and other witnesses to news events, as well as quirky human-interest stories. Frum'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.

Between October 1974 and July 1975, she hosted her own self-titled talk show, first locally broadcast in Toronto until May 1975 before the program moved to the national CBC network for seven shows in June and July 1975. The shows featured both interviews with personalities and special segments devoted to isolated topics.

In 1981, CBC Television created '' The Journal'', a newsmagazine series which would follow '' The National'' each night at 10:22 p.m., and Frum and Mary Lou Finlay were hired as the show's hosts. On January 11, 1982, ''The Journal'' debuted as a showcase for features which delved more deeply into the day's news than the traditional newscast format of ''The National''.

The show included field reports, short documentaries, public forums, debates, business, sports, and arts and science news, but Frum's interviews were the show's centrepiece, and made it one of Canadian television's most popular programs. After the first year, Frum became the sole host of the program, although Finlay continued to be associated with the program as a reporter and documentarian. Frum interviewed many notable people, including British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela.

She angered many when, on December 7, 1989 on ''The Journal'', she refused to acknowledge that the École Polytechnique massacre, by a killer who proclaimed as he shot and stabbed women, "I hate feminists!" was an attack on women and feminism, saying: "Why do we diminish it by suggesting that it was an act against just one group?"

Frum was frequently parodied on ''CODCO

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