Hana Gartner


Hana Gartner is a retired Canadian investigative journalist, best known as the host/interviewer of several programs for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Early life and education

Gartner was born in 1948 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, but grew up in Chomedey, Laval, Quebec. She studied at Loyola College, in Montreal, graduating cum laude.

Career

Gartner began her career as a radio host at Montreal's CJAD in 1970.
In 1974, she joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a TV news anchor at CBMT Montreal, moving to Toronto the following year to work on a program called In Good Company alongside Roger Abbott, Don Ferguson, Nancy White and Gene DiNovi.
Gartner became host of CBC Radio's This Country in the Morning, replacing Judy LaMarsh, in 1976. The following year, she moved back to television, as a co-host of both the CBC's local newscast at CBLT in Toronto and the network's afternoon public affairs program Take 30.
In 1982, Gartner became co-host of the CBC's prime time TV newsmagazine, The Fifth Estate.
She was given an interview series in 1994, Contact with Hana Gartner.
In 1995, she replaced Pamela Wallin as co-host with Peter Mansbridge of CBC's flagship newshour, Prime Time News as it returned to 10 pm and reverted to its previous name of The National. Gartner hosted the National Magazine portion of the programme which consisted of interviews, extended features and documentaries and constituted the second half of the hour following Mansbridge's newscast.
Gartner left The National and returned to The Fifth Estate in 2000 remaining with the programme for the next eleven years.
On May 11, 2011, Gartner announced her retirement from the CBC.

Awards

Gartner has won five Gemini Awards, and has been nominated 18 times in Gemini hosting, anchoring, and interviewing categories during her career. She has also twice won the special Gemini Gordon Sinclair Award for excellence in broadcast journalism in 1985, and again in 2006. In 2011, she was nominated for a Michener Award for her story about a troubled teen who died while in the Ontario corrections system.
In 2019 she was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada.

Personal life

She currently resides with her son Gar, daughter Samm, and husband Bruce Griffin in Toronto, Ontario.