A longtime fixture of the Global BC newsroom is being honoured with a prestigious journalism award.
Clive Jackson, who retired as Global BC assignment editor in 2015, has been announced as the winner of the 2018 Jack Webster Foundation Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jackson began his career in the U.K. on Fleet Street, in the no-holds-barred world of London newspapers. It was there he developed his thirst for scoops and breaking news, a talent that he later brought to British Columbia.
After a brief stint as a bellboy in Los Angeles, Jackson landed a job with The Province newspaper, before transitioning to TV when he landed a job with the station then known as BCTV.
Jackson reported TV news for a decade in the 1980s, breaking numerous stories and taking iconic assignments such as being the first TV reporter in Bountiful, B.C., the small Mormon community at the centre of several high-profile polygamy cases.
PHOTOS: Jackson on assignment for BCTV
In 1990, he moved to an off-screen role, quarterbacking the news from the assignment desk where he rose at 4 a.m. every day thinking of ways to beat the competition.
“What do I think a perfect story is? It’s a story that someone will talk about over the water cooler the next day,” said Jackson as he signed off in 2015.
WATCH: Clive Jackson’s last day at Global BC
In his two-and-a-half decades on the desk, Jackson helped build the station now called Global BC into an institution, and at one point, the third highest-rated local news show in North America.
Jackson also prioritized public service through journalism.
READ MORE: Assignment editor Clive Jackson reflects on first 50 years of BCTV/Global BC
He played a key role in helping the BC Children’s Hospital raise half-a-billion dollars to build its new facility, and helped to raise $5 million from viewers to replace thousands of trees that were destroyed when a powerful windstorm blasted Stanley Park back in 2006.
Jackson will be formally presented with the award on Monday, Oct. 29 in Vancouver.
— With files from Justin McElroy