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Page 36 | MASQUERADE | Summer 2009

and speakers provided the students the
opportunity to learn from the best, and
grow eff ective friendships.

When Thomson came out of Seneca,

she, like all students, had to start on the
bottom rung. However, the friendships
she made at Seneca, as well as the rela-
tionships she started with various people
in the industry, were fruitful.

Thomson explains that networking is

an important process of communicat-
ing with people in hopes of marketing
yourself and advancing your career.
For radio, networking with good demo
tapes or recordings of old broadcasts
you've done gives potential employers
the chance to hear you, and thus it is an
extremely important factor in getting a
job. All of her friends were beginning to
earn jobs in the industry. It was to their
advantage that they all worked together
trading demo tapes while trying to fi nd
their big break. For Thomson, her break
came from Belleville, Ontario.

"When I fi rst got out of school, the

only job I could fi nd was in Belleville,
Ontario, where the one listener was my
Dad. But I kept networking; I talked to
friends and contacts, and I sent out vari-
ous recordings of myself."

Finally, the networking paid off and

she landed a job with CFTR radio, now
680 News Toronto, doing overnight news
updates, and, in doing so, she got her
fi rst exposure to television. "I had to go
on television for overnight news up-
dates, where I'd sit down in front of the
camera, the red light would come on and
I'd read the news."

Early in her job at CFTR radio she

received a call from CFTO television to
come in for an interview. At fi rst she
didn't believe it was real and thought
it was a prank being played on her by
a friend. She ignored it and moved on,
but she received a second call that made
it pretty clear that it was indeed a real
interview. Thomson jumped at the op-
portunity. The interview was a success
as she was hired as a reporter. It wasn't
long before she fi lled in for an absent
TV news anchor. Not long after she was
asked to anchor Global nightly news in
Toronto before joining Canada AM in
2003.

I was able to talk to Ms. Thomson

about some of her interviews with
famous people. One that stands out for
Thomson is Barbara Walters, a personal

Beverly Thomson cont.

hero of hers. She feels Walters knocked
down barriers in the industry so that the
next generation of female broadcasters
could succeed. Thomson says it was one
of the few interviews she was afraid to
do.

Today Thomson is nationally recog-

nized as the host of Canada AM, a job she
says is the best in the world. She does
charitable work with the Canadian Breast
Cancer Foundation, Muki Baum Associa-
tion, Charles H. Best Diabetes Centre and
is a 2006 recipient of the Gemini Humani-
tarian Award.

When asked about what she wants to

do in the future, she said she has an in-
terest in documentaries, but for now, she
adds, she has the best job in the world
and still loves waking up and going to
work every morning. [m]

worldwide," says Klunder. She knows that
the world, and its support for the arts,
has also changed. With the economy at
the forefront of today's media, art is on
the back burner. This is also the truth
in regards to the government funding
public school's arts programs.

"If they're going to other industries,"

says Klunder, "they can certainly subsi-
dize the creative ones. Art is the engine
of the city. We go to Paris to see art. If
we more art education, we could have
poets as Prime Ministers or more people

Klunder: Artist cont.

C a r e e r s i n t h e A r t s

that see design as a way to benefi t the
community. Art education should be
mandatory, as it enriches the human
experience."

Barbara Klunder encourages people

to fi nd their creative niche. Klunder has
faith that artists are the visionaries of the
future, good communicators and team
players who can pioneer a new tomor-
row.

"New ideas are the engine of human-

ity," she says. "In the fashion industry, it's
all about what's new. I don't agree with
that. We don't need a new car design

every year; we need a car that works with
no gas. We better think up new and cre-
ative ideas. If you want to call creativity
art, it's OK with me," adds Klunder.

As for what`s new with Barbara

Klunder, she is working on her next book,
which will follow Other Goose: Recycled
Rhymes for Our Fragile Times, published
in 2007.

Barbara Klunder inspires us to stay true

to our roots and respect the earth we live
on. This is one of the primary messages
of Klunder's work and is something we
can all take to heart. [m]