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'You have to be open to opportunity. You have to be willing .… If you try different things and you work hard at them, you build a variety of skills that you can use for the rest of your life,' says Wallin.
It’s no exaggeration to say Pamela Wallin has done most of her learning at the University of Life. Starting with her first job as a radio host, and throughout an extraordinary journalistic career, Ms. Wallin—until recently Canada’s Consul General in New York City—has had faith in her ability to learn on the fly.
“My approach has always been to say yes to professional opportunities I have little experience with,” said Ms. Wallin from her New York City office. “Whether it was hosting radio or running a consulate, I’ve always been prepared to take my best shot at success. That approach has allowed me to stretch and learn.”
By most people’s standards, Ms. Wallin’s career, which has spanned more than 25 years and taken her across several continents, has been brilliant. After landing her first journalism job by chance—a friend called and needed a one-week replacement for a CBC open-line radio host who was ill—she rose through the journalistic ranks to become one of Canada’s most accomplished interviewers.
Ms. Wallin has worked as a producer for CBC Radio’s Sunday Morning and As it Happens, as a print journalist at the Toronto Star’s Ottawa bureau, as co-host on Canada AM, and then as the first female Ottawa bureau chief in Canadian network television history. She has interviewed celebrities, prime ministers, and a host of world leaders. She has run a successful production company. She has been awarded six honourary doctorates and has sat on the boards of a dozen corporations and foundations. She has written two books: Speaking of Success, a collection of perspectives of celebrities she has interviewed over the years, and her best-selling memoir Since You Asked.
Through all, Ms. Wallin has relied on the bootstrap work ethic she learned growing up in the little town of Wadena, Saskatchewan. She says an excellent upbringing imbued her with confidence and an eagerness to excel, and instilled honesty and an appreciation for the value of close personal relationships. Meanwhile, her parents consistently urged the young Pamela to reach beyond her own self-image. They taught their children that character and hard work trump genius—and that taking risks can lead to enormous professional payoffs.
“Before my friend called with the CBC Radio job offer, I didn’t know radio journalism was an option for women,” said Ms. Wallin. “But I accepted right away and have never looked back. If I hadn’t seized that opportunity my life might look very different than it does today.”
Indeed, Ms. Wallin has never turned down an interesting job offer, no matter how terrifying.“If I was working in radio behind the scenes and someone asked me to go on air, I said yes. If somebody asked me to come work for a newspaper even though I’d never worked for a newspaper, I said yes. The same thing happened with television. That’s been my pattern all along.”
Ms. Wallin’s most recent embrace of both change and challenge is a case in point. When Prime Minister Jean Chrétien telephoned in 2004 to offer her the position as Consul General, Ms. Wallin had recently signed a contract with CTV for a full season of programming. Staff had been hired. Shooting had begun.
“When the Prime Minister made the offer I didn’t really know what being Consul General meant. But I knew before he finished his sentence that I would say yes.” The implications of saying yes were complex. Ms. Wallin had to extricate herself from her CTV contract and ensure her staff had work to compensate for the cancelled show.
“The point is you have to be open to opportunity. You have to be willing,” she said. “If you tell yourself, now I’m a farmer, or a teacher, or a journalist, or a consul general—and this is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life—then you shut off some critical opportunities to learn. If you try different things and you work hard at them, you build a variety of skills that you can use for the rest of your life.”
Sometimes the wisdom of her approach surprises even Ms. Wallin. For instance, she hadn’t expected her journalistic expertise would be relevant to her diplomatic role. As a journalist she had learned: always do your homework, never go into a situation without being prepared, and know more about the person you are meeting or interviewing than they know about themselves.
“I learned how to put the right people together in the right room to have the right conversation. That’s what journalism is about, at least the way I practiced it. And those are exactly the skills I have come to use as Consul General.” Ms. Wallin maintains that a thorough—almost journalistic—study of American sensibilities has been a critical part of her job in a post-9/11 environment. “9/11 changed the American character. It changed who they were completely. We in Canada need to know what that means.”
Extensive travel throughout her journalistic career taught Ms. Wallin how to handle herself abroad. It is a skill she’ll cherish for the rest of her life.
“On a recent trip to Shanghai I decided to explore the city by hiring a driver. None of the drivers spoke English, but I didn’t get into the car and think ‘I can’t talk to this guy’. We talked. I spoke in English; he spoke Mandarin. We managed to communicate.”
Ms. Wallin says her ability to handle unusual social situations comes from experience with unfamiliar places and environments. “When you travel, you understand there are differences between people, but that they’re not insurmountable. It’s just different. You learn to cope.”
Her travels have also shown Ms. Wallin how lucky she is to be Canadian.
“You travel to a place that’s in the middle of a civil war or you’re in a refugee camp and you see people starving and dying and it puts our Canadian troubles into perspective. We have the luxury of debating the constitution, the free trade agreement and federal-provincial deals. That kind of learning has given me a sense of my own responsibility in the world.”
Although her successes have been many, not all of Ms. Wallin’s gutsy moves have produced results she’s proud of. She doesn’t believe her memoir Since You Asked is very good. But she doesn’t regret having written it.
“I wrote it chronologically because that was what made the most sense at the time. It doesn’t really work. However, if I ever write a volume two, I’ll have my experience with the first volume to fall back and I’ll do better. I learned from that. I learned by doing it.”