Soon after graduating in 1982, she was hired by the Toronto Star, where she worked as a reporter, feature writer, and political correspondent. During her last four years at the Toronto Star, she also served as an editorial writer and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board. In 1996, she was hired by TVOntario, where she and Steve Paikin co-hosted the nightly newsmagazineStudio 2 for 10 years. She also hosted and co-produced Person 2 Person with Paula Todd, an interview program first broadcast in 2000. She was hired by CTV News Channel, where she did investigative reporting and hosted The Verdict with Paula Todd, a prime-time legal and justice affairs program. The debut episode of The Verdict was broadcast from Chicagoon 15 March 2007 and covered United States v. Black, the criminal fraud trial of Conrad Black.. Todd also worked as an investigative reporter for W5 on CTV News. Todd has written for numerous publications, including The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Maclean's, Canadian Living and Law Times. Todd served as a judge for the National Newspaper Awards, the Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship Awards, is a National Magazine Award nominee, and won the Paramedic Association’s Media Award for public education. She is a literacy advocate, and served on the Board of Directors of Integra, an organization that assists children and teens with learning disabilities, a cause she supports. She served on the board of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, and is the author of the book A Quiet Courage: Inspiring Stories from All of Us which was published in 2004. It was based on Person 2 Person. A frequent contributor to radio and television before joining TVO, Todd was a regular host on CBC Newsworld's Face Off, appeared as a frequent Global TV and CBC panelist, and also as a political analyst for CBC Radio in Toronto and Ottawa. Her contract with CTV News began on 1 March 2007.
Writing
In 2012, Todd wrote a book chronicling her search for and eventual discovery of Karla Homolka several years after Homolka had been released from prison. Todd found Homolka living in a small apartment in Guadeloupe, with her husband Thierry Bordelais and three children, where she was using the alias Leanne Bordelais. Todd spent an hour with Homolka, during which they spoke about various subjects, including Homolka's sense of safety, her children and Canadians' attitude toward her. On 21 June 2012, Todd published her interview and observations in the ebook Finding Karla: How I Tracked Down an Elusive Serial Child Killer and Discovered a Mother of Three published by the Canadian Writers Group. In 2014, Signal Books published Todd's third non-fiction book, Extreme Mean: Ending Cyberabuse at School, Work and Home, which was shortlisted by the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction in 2014 and the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Non-Fiction in 2015.
