Veteran broadcaster and author Bill Cameron has died after a battle with cancer. He was 62.

Cameron died around midnight Friday of cancer of the esophagus, which had moved into his brain and liver, said a CBC spokeswoman.

He is perhaps best known as an anchor, writer, reporter and documentary producer for CBC Television's renowned magazine program The Journal.

Bill Cameron (CP file photo)
Bill Cameron (CP file photo)

The Gemini Award-winner got his start as an anchor and interviewer as host of Global TV's Newsweek from 1978 to '83. He was also an anchor on Toronto's independent Citytv in the 1980s before joining the CBC.

At the public broadcaster, he worked for Newsworld out of Halifax, Newsworld International, CBLT and was host of CBC News' Sunday Report.

During his years with The Journal, Cameron reported from several war zones, including Mozambique, Rwanda, the West Bank, Nicaragua and Croatia. He was the show's final host when it signed off Oct. 30, 1992.

"He has a wealth of news experience and knows how to get the most out of a story," Slawko Klymkiw, CBC-TV's chief programmer and former head of Newsworld, once said.

Born in Vancouver in 1943, Cameron decided to try his hand at journalism in the late 1960s, while still a struggling actor and writer.

His first job as a freelance entertainment critic for CBC Radio led to positions at the Star Weekly and Macleans, where his reputation as one of the best young writers in the business prompted Global to lure him into television writing in 1973.

Cameron left the CBC in 1999 and took a position with an online gem marketing firm as its vice-president of communications.

His novel Cat's Crossing came out in the spring of 2003. His publisher, Random House of Canada, described it as "a dark and uproarious satire about media, the modern city and a missing cat."

He had been fighting cancer for more than a year. Even during his illness, he kept working, freelancing for digital TV's iChannel and The Walrus magazine, and teaching media ethics at Ryerson University in Toronto.

He also had a continuing role as the voice of the newscaster on the television comedy series Puppets Who Kill.

As recently as the Christmas holidays, Cameron had hosted CBC Radio's The Current and As It Happens.

Cameron is survived by his wife, Cheryl Hawkes, a freelance journalist, and their three children.