Karyn Pugliese

Karyn Pugliese is an award-winning Canadian broadcast journalist and communications specialist, of Algonquin and Italian descent. She is member of the Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn First Nation in Ontario.

Pugliese is best known for her work as a journalist/Executive Director of news and current affairs at the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and as the host of ichannel’s #FAQMP. However, she also worked briefly at CBC, Vision TV and as a Communications Director for the Assembly of First Nations. Pugliese sits on the Canadian Association of Journalists Ethics Committee. Pugliese has acted as a co-chair for the Night for Rights Gala, an event which raises approximately $140,000 annually for rights-based journalism programming, and is organized by Journalist for Human Rights, JHR. Pugliese has worked with JHR to train young indigenous journalists and she frequently speaks in support of the organization.

Pugliese was born and raised in Ottawa Ontario, but frequently visited Pikwàkanagàn in her youth. Most of her close family lived off-reserve in Ottawa.

Pugliese dropped out of high school three times, eventually enrolling in an alternative high school where she earned her diploma. Although she was a bright student, Pugliese had no intention of attending university, and wanted to be a bartender, until a high school teacher coaxed her into applying to Carleton University's journalism program. She enrolled and graduated with a combined honours in Journalism and History in 1998.

After graduating Pugliese worked short-term contracts at CBC Radio Ottawa’s Morning Show, Sounds Like Canada and CTV television, Ottawa. As a single mother of a young child, Pugliese found it difficult to balance motherhood with the instability of a journalism career. For a time she left journalism and worked as a technical writer in the federal government. Around this time she returned to Carleton University to complete an M.A. in History. Her thesis 'So, where are you from?' Glimpsing the history of Ottawa-Gatineau's urban Indian communities is a history of the off-reserve community she grew up in.

...
Wikipedia