Alison Smith, a senior correspondent for CBC News and host of CBC Radio’s flagship news show The World at Six, has announced she is leaving the public broadcaster at the end of June.
Smith’s revelation comes just after CBC colleague Linden MacIntyre announced he would be leaving CBC at the end of the summer.
Alison Smith, longtime CBC News veteran, announced Thursday she is retiring from the public broadcaster. (CBC)
“It’s time. I’ve been thinking about this for quite a long time and I’ve had a terrific run. I’ve been very privileged to have purpose in my life at the CBC, which has been challenging and creative and fulfilling. But it’s time now,” she told CBC News on Thursday.
“I think I had made up my mind that it’s time for me, but then I also saw the cuts that were coming down the road and the effect that it was going to have on so many of our colleagues. It just confirmed for me that this was the right time and it was the right decision for me to make.”
B.C.-born Smith began her journalism career covering municipal and provincial politics in Toronto in 1977, before moving onto national affairs and business news for CBC’s The National during the 1980s.
Throughout her career, she has served as host of many programs — including This Day, The Lead, Newsworld Reports, Sunday Report and CBC News Morning — and as CBC Television’s longtime Washington correspondent, including through the historic election of U.S. President Barack Obama. Smith, who is 59, moved to anchoring The World at Six in 2009.
“This is not a job that you do for financial reward.”
Alison is a graduate of SOSS