An award winning journalist, Leslie Roberts brings his vast broadcast experience to Global Toronto as anchor of News Hour, News Hour Final and Focus Ontario.
In 2010, Leslie Roberts won the Consumers’ Choice Award for “Man of the Year” and was also part of the team that won “Canada’s Best Newscast” from the Radio & Television News Directors of Canada (RTNDA) as well as the 2008 and 2009 Ontario Association of Broadcasters’ (OAB) Community Service award for their ongoing contributions to the community. Most recently, Leslie and the Global Toronto team received the “Best Newscast” award from the 2013 Canadian Screen Awards.
Growing up in a family of journalists/broadcasters and having a mother who was an assistant to a federal MP, it was not unusual to have both journalists and politicians at Leslie’s dinner table. He was definitely not the only one in his family with the media “bug.” Leslie’s great-grandfather, John Roberts founded a Montreal tabloid newspaper. His grandfather, and namesake Leslie, was a Canadian historian who served as a special advisor to Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson and later was Montreal’s CJAD Radio’s editorialist. His father, Bill, was CJAD’s morning man for 20 years before becoming a radio talk show host and later, news director. Leslie’s uncle Grant worked for the Globe and Mail and the Montreal Star, while his brother Rob is night editor at the National Post.
While still in school, Leslie interned in a radio newsroom after class and at age 18, found himself covering the 1980 Quebec referendum, interviewing the likes of Rene Levesque and Pierre Trudeau. He made the jump to television in 1985, when he was hired as a medical reporter and spent 12 years at CTV Montreal. There, he hosted his own morning show, Montreal AM Live, and served as one of four hosts on the syndicated travel show, “Travel Travel.”
In 1995, Leslie was called down to New York City where he hosted an info-tainment show called “A Current Affair” and then moved on to work at a Fox News affiliate, WNYW. Three years later, he returned to CTV Montreal as a full-time anchor. In 2000, he joined Global Quebec as news director and co-anchor of the evening news. Leslie joined the Global Toronto team in 2001.
In 2007-2008, he hosted his own weekday morning radio talk show on Newstalk 1010 CFRB.
Leslie is also very involved in the community, sitting on several charity boards, supporting many causes and hosting many charitable events. This year he will be hosting the Toronto Fitness Challenge, a Guinness World Record breaking event in support of SickKids Foundation on Saturday June 15th at the Toronto Metro Convention Centre.
