Joan Hollobon

Joan Hollobon OC, (born 1920) is a Welsh-born Canadian writer and journalist best known for her progressive medical reporting for Globe and Mail. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada (2019) in recognition of her impact on the relationship between medical professionals and the media.

Joan Hollobon
Born1920 (age 102–103)
Isle of Wight
NationalityCanadian
Occupationjournalist
Years active1952-1985
AwardsOrder of Canada

Early life and education

Joan May Hollobon on the Isle of Wight in 1920.[1]: 136 [2] An only child, she grew up near and attended school in Rhyl, Wales.[2] During World War II Hollobon volunteered as an administrative and press officer with the British Red Cross.[2] In 1946 she moved to Berlin where she worked as a British secretary for the Allied Control Commission.[1]: 136 [3]: 80 

Hollobon first travelled to Canada in 1949 on a visitor's visa but had trouble finding stable employment.[1]: 136  She left for England, where she worked for Reader's Digest writing letters. Returning to Canada in 1951, Hollobon moved to Kirkland Lake, Ontario where she landed a job with the Kirkland Lake Northern News.[1]: 137 

Career

Hollobon worked for the Kirkland Lake Northern News from 1952 to 1953.[1]: 135  She worked as women's editor before becoming a general reporter, covering news related to the mining industry.[1]: 138  From 1954 to 1956 she wrote for the North Bay Nugget .[1]: 135  Judge J.A.S. Plouffe recognized Hollobon's "just and accurate reporting" of police commission meetings at a send off from the newspaper, ahead of her departure for a position at The Globe and Mail.[4]

After joining The Globe and Mail in 1956, Hollobon worked as a general assignment reporter.[1]: 141  One of her early pieces covered remarks made by Jewish labour activist Kalmen Kaplansky at the Ontario Federation's of Labor's Human Rights Conference in December of that year regarding employment discrimination based on religion.[1]: 141  In 1959, she took over medical reporting for the newspaper.[5] The role had previously been held by David Spurgeon.[1]: 144 

Hollobon began reporting on medical issues at a time when medical professionals wanted little to do with journalists. She told reporter Paula Arab that "[i]n those days, Canadian scientists and doctors considered it virtually unethical to talk to the press at all."[6] In 1962, Hollobon covered the Saskatchewan doctors' strike during which physicians vowed to close their practices if Medicare became law.[1]: 144  Her series on the events was later reprinted by The Globe and Mail as a booklet titled “Bungle, Truce and Trouble”.[1]: 145 [7] In the 1970s Hollobon was among the fist to report on transgender people and their experience pursuing sex reassignment surgery, at the time reported as sex-change operations.[1]: 148 

Beyond her writing for The Globe and Mail, Hollobon helped found the Canadian Science Writers' Association in 1971.[3]: 80  She joined the Toronto branch of the Canadian Women's Press Club in 1968 and served for a time as treasurer.[3]: 80  Hollobon was also once a contributing editor for the Journal of Addition Research Foundation of Ontario.[1]: 150 [3]: 81 

Hollobon retired from The Globe and Mail in 1985.[1]: 150 [5]

Honours

In 1990 Hollobon, along with Toronto Star reporter Marilyn Dunlop, was awarded the Royal Canadian Institute's Sandford Fleming Award.[8] Hollobon was named an Officer of the Order of Canada on December 28, 2019.[9] The citation for the honor noted her "influenced how physicians interact with their patients and the public on a daily basis."[10] In 2022 the National Newspaper Awards's Beat Reporting award was named after Joan Hollobon for establishing "what beat reporting should be".[11]

Publications
  • Hollobon, Joan (1987). The lion's tale : a history of the Wellesley Hospital, 1912-1987. Toronto: Irwin. ISBN 0772512205.

References
  1. MacKinnon, Donna Jean (2017). "Joan Hollobon". Newsgirls : gutsy pioneers in Canada's newsrooms. Toronto. pp. 135–151. ISBN 978-1-988170-04-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. Visser-de Vries, Andy F. (6 November 2019). "Science Writers and Communicators of Canada - Joan Hollobon - Goes to Berlin". sciencewriters.ca. Archived from the original on 22 July 2022. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
  3. Rex, Kay (1995). No daughter of mine : the women and history of the Canadian Women's Press Club, 1904-1971. Toronto, ON : Cedar Cave. ISBN 978-0-920403-08-2. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
  4. Blakely, Edna (11 October 1956). "Chit Chat: Joan Hollobon Feted". North Bay Nugget. p. 12.
  5. Andrew-Gee, Eric (27 December 2019). "Order of Canada: Stephen Harper, Donna Strickland, Xavier Dolan among new appointments". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on 2 November 2021. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
  6. Arab, Paula (19 November 1988). "Junk science blamed for fueling fears". Windsor Star. p. 18.
  7. Visser-de Vries, Andy F. (8 October 2019). "Science Writers and Communicators of Canada - Joan Hollobon and the 1962 Saskatchewan Medicare Crisis". sciencewriters.ca. Archived from the original on 22 July 2022. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
  8. Foster, Jim (8 April 1990). "The Star's Marilyn Dunlop honored for medical writing". Toronto Star. pp. A10.
  9. "Joan Hollobon named an Officer of the Order of Canada". www.nasw.org. 13 February 2020. Archived from the original on 2 September 2020. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
  10. "Ms. Joan May Hollobon". The Governor General of Canada. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
  11. Jolly, Brent (14 May 2022). "National Newspaper Awards welcomes two new governors and approves two new award sponsorships". News Media Canada. Archived from the original on 14 May 2022. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
  • "Joan Hollobon Fonds". archives.uwaterloo.ca. University of Waterloo Library - Special Collections & Archives. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
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