Peter Desbarats
| Peter Desbarats | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 2, 1933 Montreal, Quebec |
| Died | February 11, 2014 (aged 80) London, Ontario |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation | journalist, writer |
| Known for | Global News anchor, Toronto Star columnist |
Peter Hullett Desbarats, OC (July 2, 1933 – February 11, 2014) was a Canadian author, playwright and journalist. He was also the dean of journalism at the University of Western Ontario (1981–1997), a former commissioner in the Somalia Inquiry and a former Maclean-Hunter chair of Communications Ethics at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario.
Until his death from Alzheimer's disease, he lived in a heritage home with his actress wife Hazel in the East Woodfield Heritage Conservation District in London, Ontario.
Peter Desbarats was born in 1933 to Hullett Desbarats (a descendant of the printer and publisher George-Édouard Desbarats) and Margaret Rettie. The family lived on Connaught Avenue in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and Peter attended Loyola High School.
Before he was appointed dean of UWO's journalism school, which he successfully fought to save in the 1990s when UWO wanted to discontinue the program, he worked as a print and television journalist for 30 years, starting as a copy boy with the Canadian Press, Canada's national news co-operative, in his home town of Montreal.
Desbarats worked in London's Fleet Street for Reuters news agency, as a political reporter and foreign correspondent for the Montreal Star and as national affairs columnist for the Toronto Star. In the 1960s and early 1970s he hosted the supper-hour news and current affairs show on Montreal television station CBMT, and in the 1970s was co-anchor and Ottawa Bureau Chief for the Global Television Network, winning the 1977 ACTRA Award for best news broadcaster.
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