News Maker

Veteran journalist Carol Off on global conflict, gender politics and becoming part of the story

- Samia Madwar

In your new memoir, All We Leave Behind, you describe reporting from Pakistan early in your career. Three decades later, you’re the co-host of CBC’s As It Happens. How have things changed for female journalists in the intervening years?

When I started out, it was unusual to meet women in the field. Now there are many of us. I remember a turning point: going back and forth between Jordan and Israel during the Gulf War in early 1991. This young male journalist from Ireland started hanging around with me, which was surprising—the men were cliquish. He said, “You get through the checkpoints easier than anybody.

That access is part of why you wrote this book, which centres on the Aryubwals, an Afghan family. Their lives were in danger in part because the father spoke out against local warlords in a documentary you produced in 2002. You’re candid about your struggle to separate yourself from this story.