Ginella Massa (who they note wears a HIjab) to join CBC News Network as primetime host, but only a few tens of thousands see the CBCNN cable service.

[Dan Sayg]

Ginella Massa to join CBC News Network as primetime host

Massa, 33, will also work as special correspondent for flagship program The National

by Jackson Weaver · CBC News · Posted: Oct 28, 2020 2:00 PM ET | Last Updated: October 28

PHOTO Ginella Massa will join CBC News Network as a primetime host starting in the new year. (Yasmine Mehdi/CBC)

Journalist Ginella Massa will join CBC News Network as the host of a new primetime show, the Crown corporation announced Wednesday as part of programming changes over the next few months.

"She's just got a spark and curiosity to her that is refreshing at a time when there's so much to be interested in, and so much that is sort of unchartered in terms of the kind of journalism we do, the kind of stories we tell," said Michael Gruzuk, CBC's senior director of programming.
[ She was born to a non-Muslim family in Panama City, and became a Muslim early on as her mother converted to Islam. ]

Massa will also join CBC's flagship news program The National as a special correspondent, as well as take part in "many of our CBC News specials," according to an internal CBC memo.

A graduate of Seneca College and York University, Massa is currently a reporter for CityNews in Toronto. In 2019, she was part of the CityNews team that won a Canadian Screen Award for best live special for coverage of an Ontario leaders' debate.

She has also worked with CTV, NewsTalk 1010 and Rogers TV, moving from behind the scenes as a news writer and producer to in front of the camera as a television journalist.

PHOTO Massa, a Seneca College and York University graduate, will work as a special correspondent for The National alongside hosting on News Network. (David Misener/CityNews)

In 2015, she became the first hijab-wearing TV reporter in Canada, and then the next year, the first to anchor a major newscast in the country.

Massa said she hopes to use her new CBC role to focus on stories from different perspectives — be it race, religion or class.

"For the last decade of my career in journalism, both behind the scenes and on air, I have often been the only one who looks like me in the room," Massa said.

"I do try to bring those perspectives to the newsroom … bring the stories that people around me are talking about, which aren't always the stories that get the most attention."

Beginning in the new year, Massa's hour-long show will air weeknights at 8 p.m. ET on CBC News Network.