The Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) announced that CBC Television correspondent Joe Schlesinger is the 2009 recipient of its  Lifetime Achievement Award.

The award will be handed out at the CJF’s 12th Annual Awards Gala on June 9 in Toronto.

Schlesinger worked full-time for the CBC from 1966 to 1994, mainly as a foreign correspondent, but also as a producer and host of Newsworld. Now 80, Schlesinger still contributes to the CBC. The CJF announcement states:

“He has covered wars and conflicts from Vietnam to the Gulf, and much more, in his illustrious career. Schlesinger was in Russia with Richard Nixon, in China with Pierre Trudeau, in the Middle East with Jimmy Carter, in Tehran when the Shah fell and Ayatollah Khomeini took over, in St. Peter’s Square when John Paul II became Pope and with him on his travels to Poland and other countries, in Europe with Gerry Ford, with Brian Mulroney in Africa and Jean Chrétien in Latin America, with Ronald Reagan on many of his travels, including his summit meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev.”

Schlesinger became a member of the Order of Canada in 1994.
 
Geoffrey Stevens, chair of CJF’s Lifetime Achievement Award jury said:

“I have been a Joe Schlesinger fan for years. He is always intelligent, fair and accurate — a model for all young journalists. Viewers can always believe and learn from a Schlesinger report. He is one of the finest foreign correspondents this country has produced. He ranks with the best internationally.”
   
Past recipients of the CJF Lifetime Achievement Award include Sally Armstrong, Norman Webster, Knowlton Nash, Pierre Berton (posthumous),
June Callwood and Doris Anderson, Trina McQueen, Doug Creighton, Mark Starowicz, Bernard Derome, Peter C. Newman, Peter Gzowski and Robert Fulford.

The annual CJF awards gala will be held at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto.