Meet... Doug Clark

Doug Clark is an award-winning journalist and a nationally recognized author, listed in the Canadian Who’s Who for most of the past decade. Over the past 25 years, he has championed the cause of – and given a voice to – the downtrodden, intervening to expose government secrecy and abuse. His investigative reporting exposed secret council meetings at the municipal level, opened doors to closed hospital-board and public-utility meetings, prompted pioneering municipal access to

information before it existed at the provincial or federal level, and once contributed to the downfall of an Ontario solicitor general and two provincial reviews of botched investigations, one of which led to charges under the Police Act. At the same time, his integrity and ability to follow a paper trail, his efforts to “get it right” and his determination to go beyond the event or headline to report not just what happened, but what it means to his readers, has earned him the trust of – and at times formal recognition from – police, public servants and even senior officers of the courts at all government levels – many granting interviews or slipping “brown envelopes” for the first time.

Clark has written five non-fiction books, one optioned as both a TV movie in Hollywood and as a feature film in Canada, another short listed as the best true-crime book in Canada. His articles and features have appeared in the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun, Edmonton Journal and such diverse national magazines as Saturday Night, Maclean’s, the Financial Post Moneywise, Legion and Omni. He has taught English to college students, ranging from journalism to police note-taking and report writing, has taught plain-language writing to adults in the private and public sectors, revived and dramatically increased the readership of a magazine for federal public-service senior managers and executives, and was awarded an Award of Excellence from the federal Public Service Commission for his plain-language manager’s guide to staffing and recruitment. Most recently, as editor of three community newspapers, two of them rated best overall in the amalgamated City of Ottawa by the Ontario Community Newspaper Association, he was the only one to staff last year’s Ward Boundary issue at the Ontario Municipal Board, trained and graduated a half-dozen reporters who moved on to better jobs as circulation for the only paid-subscription newspaper increased by roughly 30 per cent.

Clark’s empathy and insights in his reporting and writing blend university education and “real world” experience in the trenches, most notably as a much younger ambulance driver/attendant.  That has led to repeated appearances on Canada AM. He has also been interviewed by the New York Times, Newsweek International, the Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun, CBC radio and television, and radio and television stations from Ottawa to Vancouver.

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