Avril Benoît
Encyclopedia
Avril Benoît is a Canadian broadcaster best known for her radio programmes and documentaries on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
. In 2006, after two decades in journalism, she left the CBC to join Médecins Sans Frontières
/ Doctors Without Borders Canada as director of communications. She is now the host of the critically acclaimed MSF "Frontline Reports" podcast.
Benoît's documentaries from Kenya
, Burundi
, India
and Brazil
aired on CBC Radio One
's flagship show, The Current
. Her hour-long television documentary Slum Cities: a Shifting World aired on CBC News: Correspondent on CBC Newsworld
. She contributed to Dispatches
and Global Village
, was host of Ontario Morning and was the daytime voice of CBC Radio One on Sirius Satellite Radio
.
In 2004-2005 she was the Knowlton Nash
Fellow at Massey College
, University of Toronto
. Her graduate research focussed on human rights
, global governance
and official development assistance.
From 1999 to 2004, Benoît hosted and produced Here and Now
, CBC Radio One's newsmagazine weekday afternoons on CBLA-FM
in Toronto. She co-hosted, with Michael Enright, CBC Radio One's former flagship show This Morning
from 1997-1999. Before that she hosted an open-line show on CJAD
in Montreal and was a political commentator. Throughout her career, Benoît anchored numerous breaking news specials – from the 2003 North America blackout and the SARS outbreak in the same year, to military conflicts, election nights and more.
She worked at CBC-TV in Montreal for five years, as a current affairs writer-broadcaster and host. Benoît's career includes stints as host of a prime time interview show on the W Network
, and as reporter and host for local CBC Radio shows in Ottawa
, Montreal
and Quebec City
. She has also worked for the Canadian Forces
Network in Germany
, for CHIN-FM
multi-cultural station in Toronto and for a small radio station in Smiths Falls
. Her print background includes covering the 1990 presidential elections in Haiti
for The Globe and Mail
, writing arts features for NUVO magazine, and editing The Record
daily newspaper in Sherbrooke.
Benoît is a bilingual native of Ottawa, Ontario and Mont-Tremblant, Quebec.
She served on the advisory board of the education fund Give Girls a Chance from 2003 to 2006. She has been a Ditchley Foundation
participant.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
. In 2006, after two decades in journalism, she left the CBC to join Médecins Sans Frontières
Médecins Sans Frontières
' , or Doctors Without Borders, is a secular humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland...
/ Doctors Without Borders Canada as director of communications. She is now the host of the critically acclaimed MSF "Frontline Reports" podcast.
Benoît's documentaries from Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, Burundi
Burundi
Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi , is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its capital is Bujumbura...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
aired on CBC Radio One
CBC Radio One
CBC Radio One is the English language news and information radio network of the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial free and offers both local and national programming...
's flagship show, The Current
The Current (radio program)
The Current is a Canadian current affairs radio program, hosted by investigative reporter Anna Maria Tremonti on CBC Radio One. It airs weekdays starting at 8:37 a.m. local time and runs until 10 a.m. for most of the year, although during the summer the program airs until 9:30 a.m...
. Her hour-long television documentary Slum Cities: a Shifting World aired on CBC News: Correspondent on CBC Newsworld
CBC Newsworld
CBC News Network is a Canadian English language Category C specialty news channel owned and operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation . It broadcasts into over 10 million homes in Canada. It is the world's third-oldest television service of this nature, after CNN in the United States and...
. She contributed to Dispatches
Dispatches (radio program)
Dispatches is a Canadian radio program, which airs Sunday evenings at 7:00 p.m. on CBC Radio One. The program, hosted by Rick MacInnes-Rae, airs documentary reports on international news and feature topics...
and Global Village
Global Village (radio show)
Global Village was an entertainment program on the Radio One and Radio 2 networks of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, hosted by Jowi Taylor. It was heard on the Radio One network between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. local time on Wednesdays, or 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. in Newfoundland, and on the...
, was host of Ontario Morning and was the daytime voice of CBC Radio One on Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Radio.Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002 and currently provides 69 streams of music and 65 streams of...
.
In 2004-2005 she was the Knowlton Nash
Knowlton Nash
Cyril Knowlton Nash, OC, O.Ont , commonly known as Knowlton Nash, is a journalist, author, and former long-serving senior anchorman of CBC Television's flagship news program, The National...
Fellow at Massey College
Massey College
Massey College is a postgraduate residential college at the University of Toronto, established in 1963 with an endowment by the Massey Foundation. Similar to All Souls College, Oxford, members of Massey College are nominated from the university community, and are elected by and as fellows of the...
, University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
. Her graduate research focussed on human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
, global governance
Global governance
Global governance or world governance is the political interaction of transnational actors aimed at solving problems that affect more than one state or region when there is no power of enforcing compliance. The modern question of world governance exists in the context of globalization...
and official development assistance.
From 1999 to 2004, Benoît hosted and produced Here and Now
Here and Now (Toronto)
Here and Now is a daily Canadian radio show, which airs on CBLA in Toronto, Ontario.Under CBC Radio One's policy of extended local programming in metropolitan markets, the program airs from 3 to 6 p.m. on CBLA's primary transmitter in Toronto, pre-empting the 3 to 4 p.m. hour of network programming...
, CBC Radio One's newsmagazine weekday afternoons on CBLA-FM
CBLA-FM
CBLA-FM is a Canadian radio station. It is the flagship station of the CBC Radio One network, broadcasting at 99.1 FM in Toronto, Ontario.- History :...
in Toronto. She co-hosted, with Michael Enright, CBC Radio One's former flagship show This Morning
This Morning (radio program)
This Morning was a Canadian radio program which aired from 1997 to 2002 on CBC Radio One. It was not always successful with CBC audiences, and underwent several format and hosting changes during its lifetime....
from 1997-1999. Before that she hosted an open-line show on CJAD
CJAD (AM)
CJAD is an English language radio station, owned by Astral Media, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The station has a news/talk format and identifies itself as CJAD 800....
in Montreal and was a political commentator. Throughout her career, Benoît anchored numerous breaking news specials – from the 2003 North America blackout and the SARS outbreak in the same year, to military conflicts, election nights and more.
She worked at CBC-TV in Montreal for five years, as a current affairs writer-broadcaster and host. Benoît's career includes stints as host of a prime time interview show on the W Network
W Network
W Network is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel owned by Corus Entertainment. W Network broadcasts lifestyle and entertainment programming aimed at women....
, and as reporter and host for local CBC Radio shows in Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
, Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
and Quebec City
Quebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
. She has also worked for the Canadian Forces
Canadian Forces
The Canadian Forces , officially the Canadian Armed Forces , are the unified armed forces of Canada, as constituted by the National Defence Act, which states: "The Canadian Forces are the armed forces of Her Majesty raised by Canada and consist of one Service called the Canadian Armed Forces."...
Network in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, for CHIN-FM
CHIN-FM
CHIN-FM is a Canadian radio station, which broadcasts multilingual programming at FM 100.7 in Toronto, Ontario. It should not be confused with FM 91.9, a rebroadcaster of AM sister station CHIN with a different programming schedule...
multi-cultural station in Toronto and for a small radio station in Smiths Falls
Smiths Falls, Ontario
Smiths Falls is a town in Eastern Ontario, Canada. It is in the census division for Lanark County, but is considered a separated town and does not participate in county government...
. Her print background includes covering the 1990 presidential elections in Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
for The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
, writing arts features for NUVO magazine, and editing The Record
The Record (Sherbrooke)
The Record is the only daily English language newspaper based in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. It serves the Eastern Townships region of that province....
daily newspaper in Sherbrooke.
Benoît is a bilingual native of Ottawa, Ontario and Mont-Tremblant, Quebec.
She served on the advisory board of the education fund Give Girls a Chance from 2003 to 2006. She has been a Ditchley Foundation
Ditchley Foundation
The Ditchley Foundation is a British organisation based at Ditchley House near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, which aims to promote international relations, especially Anglo-American relations, through a programme of around fifteen annual conferences on matters of international interest...
participant.
External links
- Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders Canada http://msf.ca/
- Avril Benoît's article in Canada World View magazine http://www.international.gc.ca/canada-magazine/05-title-en.asp
- Avril Benoît's radio documentary How Are YouSiama? http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/un/millennium--development-goals.html
- Avril Benoît's radio documentary on The Current: Mumbai http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/media/200603/20060327thecurrent_sec3.ram
- Avril Benoît's TV documentary entitled Slum Cities: A Shifting World http://www.cbc.ca/correspondent/060507.html
- Avril's photos corresponding to her radio and TV documentary on slum cities http://www.cbc.ca/news/photogalleries/flash/mumbai.html?gallery=mumbai
- Give Girls a Chance, Tides-Canada Foundation http://givegirlsachance.org