Page 16 - Real Style August 2018

WENDY MESLEY
THE CANADIAN TELEVISION HOST AND REPORTER RETURNS TO THE AIR WITH A SECOND SEASON OF HER SHOW, EXPLORING THE BIG NEWS AND STORIES OF THE WEEK.
BY CATALINA MARGULIS
from Undercurrents to Marketplace and The National, many of us are used to getting our news from veteran
Canadian journalist Wendy Mesley. Now hosting her own show The Weekly with Wendy
Mesley on Sunday mornings on CBC, the veteran reporter covers the top stories of the week and delves deeper into issues facing Canadians and abroad.
“We’re a weird hybrid of news and current affairs and investigative,” says Mesley
of her show, which begins its second season this September. “It’s tricky to find an angle
on a story that feels hot on Wednesday but might be talked out by Sunday, so we try to figure out something fresh and deep that we can provide.
We work ahead too on bigger projects and ideas and guests. It’s a real mix, which I love. I love news, but my background is as much current affairs and investigative work, so it’s nice to put the them together.”
As the host of The Weekly, Mesley has interviewed everyone from Madeleine Albright to Kathy Griffin. So who has been her favourite person to interview?
“I interviewed Anthony Bourdain about a year ago, and I was just really swept away by his generousity and curiousity,” she says. “I interviewed him after he wrote a cookbook (Appetites) about the joys of being normal, which was an ode to living normal with his wife and daughter. He went on a speaking tour after that and the interview was all lined up, and then I read in the news that he and his wife got divorced. When I mentioned this, he
said, ‘Well I guess, who was I kidding, trying to be normal.’ Then six months later he killed himself. It’s so tragic. I often meet celebrities or other famous people, and they’re just sort
of doing the job, promoting
their movie or book, trying to
get it over with, but he was
so engaged with the world
in general, so interested and interesting, and warm and funny. I really liked him.”
As for who’s still on her wish
16 Real Style August 2018
PHOTO, CBC