There are a number of terms one could choose to describe Carol Off, who will take the reins of the flagship CBC Radio One show As It Happens tonight, most of which may appear incongruous when taken together. High-school dropout. Single mother. Award-winning filmmaker. Author. Arts reporter. War correspondent.
She's a woman who's comfortable in many roles. And as such, it might seem that Off is a perfect fit for the host job. As It Happens, which has been on the air since 1968 with its nightly blend of up-to-the minute news, thoughtful analysis, humour, wit and whimsy, requires a radio personality who has an incredible range and depth, says Jennifer McGuire, executive director of programming for CBC Radio.
However, although the CBC believed her to be the right person for such a high-profile and demanding position, Off herself wasn't so sure.
"When they offered me the job in April, I had just come back from Kandahar, where I was riding around in an APC [Armoured Personal Carrier]hearing the life stories of the soldiers, and how the mission was going. And I thought, 'My God. If I take the As It Happens job, I'm not going to be in the back of that APC; I'm not going to be going to be in that village; I'm not going to be having tea with those old sunburned faces where they tell me their stories of war.' Her decision took time to make, and required a lot of hard thought. It was hard to give up a 25-year career of reporting news from the field, and flying out to wherever the story was, she says. In the end, a lot came down to where Canada is as a nation.
"We are in a period of writing a new narrative," Off says. "There are a lot of questions about how we want to govern the country, about whether we want a more decentralized government, or whether we need more services from Ottawa. We have to decide what role we want to play in Afghanistan. And I thought 'Where is the best place for me to be directing a discussion about that narrative?'. . . In the end, I decided at As It Happens."
The urge to put the story first is typical of Off, says Anita Mielewczyk, a producer with The National, who has worked with Off on a number of documentaries. "When she's into a story, she's really into a story," Mielewczyk says. "She's involved in all the research. She wants to know as much as possible about the subject."
Off's range of interests are as broad and varied as her résumé. She has won two gold medals from the New York Festival of television for her documentary; one for A Flight from Bosnia, about suspected war criminals living in Canada, and another for Of Crimes and Courage, the story of a Kosovo girl who survived the massacre of her family and then went on to personally bring the killers to justice. In 2002, Off was awarded a Gemini Award for In The Company of Warlords, about the U.S. support for paramilitaries in Afghanistan. Her bestseller on the war in Croatia, The Ghosts of Medak Pocket: The Story of Canada's Secret War, won the prestigious Dafoe Foundation Award in 2005. Her first book, The Lion, the Fox and the Eagle: A Story of Generals and Justice in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, became a bestseller. Her most recent book, Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet, will be published this October.
It's a glittering career that eclipses its humble beginnings. At 18, Off quit school to go travelling. For just under two years, she hitchhiked across Canada, looking for "where it was happening . . . the edge, the spark, the creative juice; you had to find it." After two years of searching for that extra-special vibe, she returned to London, Ont. There, she decided to marry the man who had lent her the money for her travels, a painter named Fred Harrison. They were in love, but he refused to marry her unless she returned to school and graduated. "He said, 'I won't be married to a woman who hasn't finished high school,' so I went back and did Grade 13.
"We were just free spirits back then," the veteran journalist reflects. "We thought the wind would determine your future. It never crossed my mind that I'd have to worry about my career. I just thought, 'Career, what's with the career? I have no idea.' "
After graduating from high school, Off began a degree in English literature at the University of Western Ontario. That year, at age 21, she also gave birth to her first and only child, Joel.
It took her five years to complete university, while raising her son. When she graduated in '81, she left five-year-old Joel with his father, Harrison, whom she had divorced, and moved to Toronto. It was an emotionally tough decision, she admits. "Of course it was difficult. But I wanted to be a writer of some kind, and Toronto was the only place you could find work."
Off worked freelance in both radio and print. She earned barely enough to survive -- about $10,000 per year -- and shared a house with friends, and travelled around on her bicycle, which was "a real grind" during wintertime.
In 1986, she covered an international story that changed her life, she says. At that time, Off wanted to interview Benazir Bhutto, who was in jail at the time, and believed she had enough of an in to do it. She called the CBC Radio show, Sunday Morning, who told her that if she could score the interview, they would buy the story and put it on the air. Not having the money to cover her travel expenses, she sold most of her possessions, and bought a plane ticket to Karachi.
On arriving, she realized she had made a serious mistake, she says. She was totally unprepared to work in a dangerous dictatorship, and had no idea about operating in an Islamic state.
"I began to pray. I only pray when I'm desperate. I said, 'God, if you are there, if you really exist, do something to help me, because this is seriously bad.' "
Then Off called the only Canadian she knew in Pakistan, the consul general.
"He said, 'I'm so glad you called. Where are you? You've got to get to the airport. There's been a hijacking.' And then he told me it was my plane. The plane I had just gotten off."
On Sept. 5, four men stormed the aircraft, as it waited to take off from Karachi airport to go to New York. The pilots escaped during the takeover, leaving 379 passengers on board. The hijackers, all members of the Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal Organization, demanded that prisoners in Cyprus and Israel be released. After a 16-hour standoff, the hijackers gathered passengers and crew in one area, and began shooting, and throwing hand grenades. In all, 22 people were killed, and more than 100 were wounded before the hijacking ended.
Because Off was one of the only journalists in Karachi airport, and the airport had shut down, she filed radio stories for all the international media, the CBC, PBS, ABC, Irish stations and stations across the United States. But despite the international reputation she was developing, she felt she had done something terribly wrong.
"I felt horrible that I had asked for something to happen," the 51-year-old host cautions. "I realized as a journalist, you should never hope for the outcome of a story. You must take life as it is, and cover things as they are."
Once she returned to Canada, the CBC offered her a job as the Ottawa reporter for radio news. There she met prominent CBC journalist Linden MacIntyre, whom she went on to marry in 2000. In 1989, Off became the CBC's Quebec correspondent, based in Montreal. In 1993, she moved into television to cover the arts, because she "hadn't done it before," and wanted a new challenge.
Off loves to report on the artistic scene, with its colourful and passionate characters, and rich and complex narratives. She loves the challenge and the struggle to engage viewers who don't always care. But even though this beat always piques her curiosity, she is always drawn back to current affairs.
Which is why, in 1995, she returned to news reporting.
"This career has taken a lot of my time," she says. "I had a holiday this year for the first time in five years; I've written a book every holiday since 1999. I haven't kept much for myself. But there are so many stories to tell."