Joe Schlesinger

Career with the CBC Schlesinger returned to Canada in 1966 and joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as executive producer of The National but soon returned to reporting and served as the CBC's foreign correspondent variously in Hong Kong, Paris, Washington and Berlin, reporting on the Vietnam War, the Cultural Revolution and Ping-pong diplomacy in China,

In the early 1990s Schlesinger was promoted to managing editor of CBC News, producing commentaries and documentaries for the short-lived CBC Prime Time News. He retired from full-time employment in 1994, but continued to produce essays and special reports for CBC News. In the last half of the 1990s he became host of a few foreign news magazine programs on CBC Newsworld, including Foreign Assignment (shared with Ian Hanomansing), and Schlesinger. He continued to produce occasional documentaries for the CBC and write commentaries for the CBC News website into his eighties.

He was nominated for 18 Gemini Awards, winning three, for "Best Reportage" (1987 and 1992) and "Best News Magazine Segment" (2004). He was also awarded the John Drainie Award (1997) and "Best Performance by a Broadcast Journalist (Gordon Sinclair Award)" (1987).

On June 7, 2010, he received an honorary doctorate of laws from Queen's University in Kingston, and delivered the convocation speech to part of the graduating class of 2010 from Queens' Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

On June 8, 2011, he received an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Alberta in Edmonton for his long and distinguished career, and also delivered a speech to part of the U of A's 2011 graduating class of the Faculty of Arts.

He also held honorary doctorates from the University of British Columbia, the Royal Military College of Canada, Dalhousie University and Carleton University.

Death Schlesinger died after a prolonged illness on February 11, 2019, at the age of 90, in Toronto.