Hana Gartner

Hana Gartner (born 1948 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a Canadian television investigative journalist, best known as the host/interviewer of several programs for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

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

Early years

Gartner grew up in Chomedey, Laval, and was educated at Loyola College (now Concordia University), in Montreal, Quebec. She graduated cum laude. She began her career as a radio host at Montreal's CJAD in 1970, and joined the CBC as a TV news anchor in 1974.

Career with CBC

She joined CBC Montreal in 1974, and moved to Toronto the next 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 to television, as a co-host of both the CBC's local newscast in Toronto and the network's afternoon public affairs program Take 30. (Previous hosts of Take 30 had included Mary Lou Finlay, Moses Znaimer and Adrienne Clarkson.)

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, to showcase a different side of her journalistic skills than the investigative reporting of the fifth estate.

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 11 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.