Robin Rowland, a Canadian author, journalist and photographer, grew up in

Kitimat Kitimat is a district municipality in the North Coast region of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of the Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine regional government. The Kitimat Valley is part of the most populous urban distr ...

, British Columbia. His family then moved to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

, where he attended

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,000 faculty and staf ...

and later

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 Worl ...

. He began as a reporter for the

Sudbury Star ''The Sudbury Star'' is a Canadian daily regional newspaper published in Sudbury, Ontario. It is owned by the media company, Postmedia. It is the largest daily paper in Northeastern Ontario by circulation. History The ''Sudbury Star'' began as ...

and later worked for

CBC News CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.c ...

. While living in London he worked for as a

Videotex Videotex (or interactive videotex) was one of the earliest implementations of an end-user information system. From the late 1970s to early 2010s, it was used to deliver information (usually pages of text) to a user in computer-like format, typi ...

producer before returning to Canada and rejoining CBC New's

teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...

experiment Project Iris. He also wrote a number of radio plays for CBC Radio Drama as well as short stories and science fiction. In the mid-1980s he began collaborating with

James Dubro James "Jim" Dubro (born July 12, 1946) is a crime writer of many books, articles and investigative television shows. Early life Born in 1946 in Boston, Dubro earned an undergraduate degree (Phi Beta Kappa) from Boston University. He received hi ...

writing about organized crime in Canada. After six years with

CTV News CTV News is the news division of the CTV Television Network in Canada. The name ''CTV News'' is also applied as the title of local and regional newscasts on the network's owned-and-operated stations (O&Os), which are closely tied to the national n ...

, in 1994, as he returned to CBC News. Rowland also co-wrote the pioneering manual Researching on the Internet with Dave Kinnaman. In 1998, he became the producer of online content for CBC News: The National. In 2003, Rowland was named the first photo editor in the history of CBC News. At the same time he earned a multidisciplinary master's degree from York University and

Osgoode Hall Law School Osgoode Hall Law School, commonly shortened to Osgoode, is the law school of York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The law school is home to the Law Commission of Ontario, the Journal of Law and Social Policy, and the ''Osgoode Hall Law ...

specializing in the history of war crimes. As a result of his research, Rowland wrote A River Kwai Story, The Sonkrai Tribunal, the story of a war crimes trial for guards in one of the most infamous camps on the during the building of the

Burma Railway The Burma Railway, also known as the Siam–Burma Railway, Thai–Burma Railway and similar names, or as the Death Railway, is a railway between Ban Pong, Thailand and Thanbyuzayat, Burma (now called Myanmar). It was built from 1940 to 1943 ...

along the on

Khwae Noi River The River Kwai (), more correctly Khwae Noi ( th, แควน้อย, , 'small tributary') or Khwae Sai Yok (, ), is a river in western Thailand. It rises to the east of the Salween in the north-south spine of the Bilauktaung range near, bu ...

Bibliography

A River Kwai Story: The Sonkrai Tribunal The Creative Guide to Research Researching on the Internet (co-authored with Dave Kinnaman) Undercover Cases of the RCMP's Most Secret Operative (co-authored with

) King of the Mob: Rocco Perri and the Women Who Ran His Rackets (co-authored with

)

Morningside (radio program) ''Morningside'' was a nationally broadcast Canadian radio program, which aired on CBC Radio from September 20, 1976 to May 30, 1997. It was broadcast from 9 a.m. to noon, Monday to Friday. The series replaced a series of short-lived morning radio ...

drama series" King of the Bootleggers" starring

Bruno Gerussi Bruno Santos Gerussi (7 May 1928 – 21 November 1995) was a Canadian stage and television actor, best known for the lead role in the CBC Television series ''The Beachcombers''. He also performed onstage at the Stratford Festival, worked in radi ...

and

Barbara Budd Barbara Budd (born May 23, 1951) is a Canadian actress, narrator and radio announcer. Between 1993 and April 30, 2010, she was the co-host of CBC Radio One's ''As It Happens''. Early life Budd was born in St. Catharines, Ontario. She studied the ...

(co-authored with

) Living people Journalists from British Columbia Year of birth missing (living people) People from Kitimat Writers from British Columbia {{Canada-journalist-stub