Biz reporter in the eye of the storm
By Jennifer Allford
He didn’t know it at the time, but David Parkinson’s career was determined during a quick conversation with his dad in the mid-1980s. The Globe and Mail investment writer had just transferred from commerce to psychology and his concerned father was asking about job prospects with a BA.
“I’m just going to get the degree and then I am going to do something else,” Parkinson, BA’87, told his father. Not surprisingly, dad pressed for more details. That’s when the quick-thinking student recalled a notice he saw for a graduate journalism program at Western.
“I’m going to be a journalist,” blurted Parkinson. Then he thought: “Well, now that I’ve said it I suppose I should back it up. I think I liked the idea anyway but it certainly spurred me to actually do something about it.”
Parkinson started doing sportscasts at Dinos’ hockey and football games for CJSW. Later he walked into the Gauntlet offices and announced he wanted to write: “They said here’s a story, go do it.”
True to his word, Parkinson graduated with an MA in Journalism at Western in 1988. He spent a decade with the Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal news organization in Toronto and Vancouver before doing a Southam Fellowship in 1999/2000. Parkinson joined The Globe and Mail in 2000 as Energy Reporter and Alberta Bureau Chief in Calgary. After cheering on his beloved Stamps, Flames and Dinos at home games for two years, he moved to Toronto with the Globe and has been there ever since.
Parkinson is still as passionate as ever about his Calgary teams and has managed to beat the odds—with a Saskatchewan-born wife—to pass his love of the Stamps to his small son. “Despite the best attempts by his aunts and uncles from Regina to dress him in green, he is a Stampeders fan,” reports Parkinson.
He says writing about sports is still in the back of his mind and he’d love a chance to cover the Olympics one day. But he’s pretty happy where he is: “You certainly can’t complain about being a business writer at this moment in history.”
