CBC Ombudsman

About Kirk LaPointe

Kirk LaPointe is the fourth Ombudsman for the CBC's English Services. He follows Vince Carlin, David Bazay and William Morgan in that position.

He has taught ethics and leadership, research methods, media law, freedom of information and media management since 2004 at the Graduate School of Journalism at University of British Columbia, where he is an Adjunct Professor and Executive in Residence.

Before he assumed the role in November 2010, LaPointe was the Managing Editor for seven years at The Vancouver Sun, western Canada's largest newsroom, where he helped lead its transformation to a digital-first operation.

He has been one of Canada's leading newsroom managers for a quarter-century and has held the senior editorial roles at CTV News, the Southam News agency and The Hamilton Spectator. He was the founding Executive Editor of National Post and has been the Ottawa Bureau Chief and General News Editor of The Canadian Press, an advisor to the publisher of the Toronto Star, and a day-one host on CBC Newsworld, among other roles. His news operations have won the Canadian Journalism Foundation Award of Excellence, several Gemini Awards, National Newspaper Awards and Webster Awards, among other industry recognition.

He has been a leading public speaker and writer on journalism practices and media change in the digital era and created the successful blog, themediamanager.com. He has been a member of the Canadian Association of Journalism ethics committee and served as Canadian chair of the international committee for the Online News Association.

He is a graduate of Ryerson University in Journalism. He is on the advisory committee to Frontier College, the country's largest institute on literacy programs, among other community work. He is married to Mary Lynn Young, PhD, the Associate Dean of Arts at University of British Columbia, and lives in Vancouver.