Tom Clark (born 1952/1953) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

former television journalist. A longtime reporter and anchor for ''

CTV National News ''CTV National News'' is the flagship newscast of CTV News, the news division of the CTV Television Network, which airs at 11:00 pm local time on the CTV stations across Canada, and is produced from CTV's facilities at 9 Channel Nine Court in S ...

'' and CTV News Channel, he moved to

Global News Global News is the news and current affairs division of the Canadian Global Television Network. The network is owned by Corus Entertainment, which oversees all of the network's national news programming as well as local news on its 21 owned-an ...

in 2011 before retiring from journalism in 2016. Currently, he serves as Chair, Public Affairs and Communications at Global Public Affairs.

Personal

Clark was born in the early 1950s (1952 or 1953) to Joseph Adair Porter Clark and Patricia Grant, and raised in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

. He graduated from

Upper Canada College Upper Canada College (UCC) is an elite, all-boys, private school in Toronto, Ontario, operating under the International Baccalaureate program. The college is widely described as the country's most prestigious preparatory school, and has produce ...

in 1971. He is fluent in both English and French. Clark attended

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning Wo ...

to study journalism, but left for a news job in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

. Clark comes from a family of journalists: * great-grandfather Joseph Thomas Clark was managing editor of the ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and par ...

'' and '' Saturday Night'' * grandfather Joseph William Greig Clark (1896–1956) RAF aviator and reporter for the ''Toronto Star'' * father Joseph Adair Porter Clark (1921–2013) was the founder, CEO and President of Canada NewsWire * great-uncle Gregory Clark (1892–1977) was an acclaimed writer and journalist with both the ''Toronto Star'' and the ''

Toronto Telegram ''The Toronto Evening Telegram'' was a conservative, broadsheet afternoon newspaper published in Toronto from 1876 to 1971. It had a reputation for supporting the Conservative Party at the federal and the provincial levels. The paper competed w ...

'' * uncle James Murray Clark (son of Greg) was also a reporter with the Star (d. 1944) Besides journalism, Clark is a licensed pilot and flies a

floatplane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, m ...

Career

Clark served as CTV's

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

Bureau Chief in the early 1980s. He was among the first to cover the

Ethiopian famine Famines in Ethiopia have occurred periodically throughout the history of the country, which was formerly known as Abyssinia. The economy was based on subsistence agriculture, with an aristocracy that consumed the surplus. Due to a number of caus ...

in 1984, was in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

in 1989 to witness the fall of the wall, and was the only Canadian reporter in

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...

when

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...

launched aerial war against

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...

in 1999. In all, Clark has covered six theatres of war. He was the first Canadian journalist to ever interview U.S. President George W. Bush one on one on television. He also hosted, and served as senior correspondent on CTV's ''

W-FIVE ''W5'' is a Canadian news magazine television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the m ...

'' for eight years, and hosted the political news show '' Power Play'' on CTV News Channel. On September 7, 2010, CTV announced Clark was leaving the network to pursue other opportunities. He had been considered one of the frontrunners to succeed Lloyd Robertson as ''CTV National News'' anchor; with his departure coming shortly after

Lisa LaFlamme Lisa LaFlamme (born July 25, 1964) is a Canadian television journalist, and formerly the chief anchor and senior editor of '' CTV National News''. She replaced Lloyd Robertson in this role on September 5, 2011. LaFlamme previously served as th ...

was named Robertson's successor, it was widely speculated that Clark's departure was tied to having been passed over. However, Clark later said that he was "neither angry nor bitter" about the choice of LaFlamme, and that CTV decided to buy out his contract. On September 1, 2011, Clark was appointed chief political correspondent for

Global Television Network The Global Television Network (more commonly called Global, or occasionally Global TV) is a Canadian English-language terrestrial television network. It is currently Canada's second most-watched private terrestrial television network after C ...

. In this role he was the inaugural host of the network's Sunday morning political talk show '' The West Block''.

announced Clark would retire as of January 1, 2017, ending his 40-plus year career in journalism. On January 9, 2017 Clark joined Global Public Affairs, Canada's largest privately owned public affairs firm, as its Chair of Public Affairs and Communications.

References

Sources

GlobalNews.ca biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Tom 1950s births Upper Canada College alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Canadian male journalists Canadian television news anchors Journalists from Toronto Place of birth missing (living people) Carleton University alumni Global Television Network people Canadian political journalists CTV Television Network people 20th-century Canadian journalists 21st-century Canadian journalists