Hana Gartner
The fifth estate's
Hana Gartner, one of Canada's top journalists, has enjoyed a distinguished career at CBC Television for three decades. During that time, her straightforward style and willingness to ask the tough questions have earned her the respect of the journalistic community and numerous awards.
Born in Prague and raised in Montreal, Gartner graduated cum laude from Concordia University's Loyola College before beginning her broadcasting career in Montreal's CJAD Radio in 1970. She quickly rose through the ranks to become the parliamentary correspondent for Standard Broadcasting News and, in 1974, moved to television as host of the CBC Montreal evening news program 'the City at Six'. A year later, she accepted a similar post at CBC Toronto and was given her own summer series, 'In Good Company', a position that led to co-host of CBC's 'Take 30'.
Gartner's candid, uncompromising style eventually attracted the attention of the producers of CBC's flagship current affairs series, 'the fifth estate'. She first joined the show in 1982, reporting from such locations as Mozambique, the Falkland Islands and the Arctic, and handling an array of topics ranging from anti-abortion protesters to biased court officials. Her most memorable interviews include a discussion with Czechosloviakian president Vaclav Havel on the eve of the country's breakup. Gartner's superior interview skills were also put to good use in 'Contact with Hana Gartner', a series of specials that ran concurrently with the fifth estate. 'Contact' allowed her to reveal the real person behind a wide range of newsmakers and interesting Canadians.
Gartner's interview skills were first rewarded in 1985 when she won the prestigious Gordon Sinclair Award for excellence in broadcast journalism. Since then, she has won three Gemini Awards, including the Best Host award in 1995 - the year she debuted as host of CBC-TV's 'The Magazine'. Following her work there, where she combined full-time documentary work and special assignments, Gartner filed stories for 'the fifth estate'.
Gartner returned to 'the fifth estate' for the 2000-2001 season. Among the fifth estate stories that made headlines that year was her provocative report on the hardcore porn industry. She revealed that pornography which appeared to contravene Canada's obscenity laws was being beamed into Canadian households via cable. Following the report, the president of Bell ExpressVu admitted that he was disturbed and upset at the explicit material being carried on his satellite TV service. Hours after the broadcast, David McLennan permanently removed the two pay-per-view channels from Bell ExpressVu. Gartner says of the story, 'it was not a moral position that we were taking. It fits into so many of those stories where technology is galloping way ahead of our ability to think and understand what we are doing and all the repercussions."
Gartner lives in Toronto with her husband and their two children.
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