Anne-Marie Mediwake has a mixed up family.
“My mother is Scottish, my father Sri Lankan, my older sister was born in England, myself in Sri Lanka and my youngest sister in Saskatchewan. We are a true Canadian family”.
Anne-Marie began working in television as a teenager, writing and producing children and youth shows for a local cable station in Alberta.
“We were young, had free time, and 30 minutes to fill. It was like bad SCTV”.
She’s come a long way since then. Her passion for television continues in her latest role as co-anchor of the News Hour on Global.
In the 90’s Anne-Marie worked at various stations in Alberta, her home province, where she was eager to try everything related to television.
“I would volunteer for ridiculous hours, doing the shoots that no one else wanted, just to gain experience”.
Her focus and hard work paid off when she was offered a producing role for 100 Huntley Street in Toronto after overseeing the only interview with the Lang family; whose son was the sole victim in the Taber High School Shooting.
In 2001, Anne-Marie was chosen to host the national, Gemini award winning program 21C – for CTV. The investigative documentary program allowed her to travel throughout Canada and other countries probing topics like Cuban defectors and Rwandan refugees. While at CTV, Anne-Marie also reported for CTV National, Canada AM and Newsnet including coverage of the Papal Visit and SARS.
In 2004 Anne-Marie joined the Global News team to work with Leslie Roberts and anchor the Noon News. When the Tsunami hit Sri Lanka, her birth country, Mediwake, a small crew and her father traveled to the devastated region and produced “A Journey Home”, a one hour national documentary. She chronicled her experiences in a weekly column for The National Post.
After anchoring the Morning News, one of her favorite jobs to date, Mediwake reset her alarm clock and joined Leslie Roberts on the stations flagship newscast.
In 2007, Anne-Marie experienced her greatest success – she gave birth to triplets. Her popular weekly column in The National Post shared her humorous journey through pregnancy and self-described awkward entry into motherhood.
Mediwake has been nominated for Canada’s Top 35 Under 35. She is a spokesperson for Your Life Counts a teen suicide prevention organization, and POGO, Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario. Her leadership and creativity have allowed her to be voted Leading Women in 2004 and co-producer of a children’s workshop using dance, drama and puppets to bring self esteem and leadership to kids.
She and her husband reporter Darryl Konynenbelt, co-wrote and produced ‘A Delightful Inheritance”, a documentary tracing the history of Dutch immigration to Canada.
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