Thompson Rivers University Faculty Association invites the public to a talk by Wendy Mesley, host of CBC’s Marketplace, on Monday, March 10, 2008, at 7 pm in the Alumni Theatre of the Clock Tower Building at TRU.
According to the well-known TV journalist, whether she’s dealing with politicians, corporate leaders, or health experts, it’s getting increasingly difficult to know who to believe these days. Mesley will take the audience behind the scenes for an insiders’ look at how media, marketing and politics influence how we are informed.
Using anecdotes drawn from her years as a political reporter for CBC’s National News, her time as host of “Undercurrents”,, and now as host of the consumer advocacy show “Marketplace”, Mesley will offer an informed and humorous take on the challenges of trying to figure out what’s right. Her interest in these issues is long-standing, but took a different angle two years ago when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She chronicled the experience last year in the documentary “Chasing the Cancer Answer”, a film that challenged the convention of thinking of cancer in terms of a cure to that of prevention.
“She has inspired us as individuals to look at the world around us and question what is being introduced into our bodies unknowingly,” said TRUFA member Carolyn Fardy, one of the organizers. “Her documentary, with the forthright questions that she posed, has helped the cause of organizations such as the BC’s Labour Environmental Alliance Society immensely in their lobbying of government to give us ‘the right to know with our consumer products’; something that European countries have had for quite some time.
“In Canada, in our workplaces, there is legislation to keep us informed what we are working with so we can take adequate protection, yet we know nothing about the sometimes potential hazardous ingredients in our everyday products,” Fardy, the co-chair of TRU Occupational Health and Safety Committee added.
TRUFA, along with the Health Sciences Association of BC, the BC Nurses’ Union, TRU’s Schools of Nursing and Journalism, Faculty of Student Development, Career Education Department and Pesticide Free Kamloops have made this event possible.
Contact:
- Carolyn Fardy, TRUFA, 250-828-5444
- Nancy Bepple, TRUFA, 250-371-5982
