Carol Off
With extensive experience in both Canadian and international current affairs, Carol Off has covered conflicts in the Middle East, Haiti and the Balkans, as well as events in the former Soviet Union, Europe, Asia, the United States and Canada. She reported the fallout from the 9/11 disasters with news features and documentaries from New York, Washington, London, Cairo and Afghanistan. She has covered Canadian military missions around the world, including its latest combat operation in Kandahar.
With extensive experience in both Canadian and international current affairs, Carol Off has covered conflicts in the Middle East, Haiti and the Balkans, as well as events in the former Soviet Union, Europe, Asia, the United States and Canada. She reported the fallout from the 9/11 disasters with news features and documentaries from New York, Washington, London, Cairo and Afghanistan. She has covered Canadian military missions around the world, including its latest combat operation in Kandahar.Her award-winning documentaries include: "Fatwas and Beauty Queens," the story of a young Nigerian journalist who fled into exile when her article on a Miss World Pageant was deemed blasphemous; "Of Crimes and Courage," the story of a child who survived the massacre of her family in Kosovo and went on to personally hunt down the killers; "In the Company of War Lords," the story of Washington's complicity with Afghanistan's most murderous criminals; "Playing with Fire," which probes the anti-Indian movement in North America; "Children of Chernobyl," the story of Cuba's medical therapy program for child victims of the Chernobyl disaster; "Flight from Bosnia," an investigation into war criminals who found safe haven in Canada's refugee system; and "Thou Shalt Not Kill," a profile of religious extremists who kill abortion doctors.Off's coverage of the post-war reconstruction of the Balkans and the war crimes trial for Yugoslavia led her to write the best-selling book "The Lion, the Fox and the Eagle: A Story of Generals and Justice in Yugoslavia and Rwanda," and another national best-seller on the war in Croatia, "The Ghosts of Medak Pocket: The Story of Canada's Secret War," which won the prestigious Dafoe Foundation Award in 2005. Her most recent book, "Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet," chronicles the international cocoa industry and the machinations behind Big Chocolate.Carol Off was an arts reporter for CBC Stereo in the early 1980s, when she also wrote for several periodicals. She was the CBC Ottawa correspondent for "Sunday Morning" in the late 1980s covering the Canada/USA Free Trade Agreement, the Meech Lake Accord, the founding of the Reform Party and the re-election of Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives. She then became CBC Radio's National Reporter for the Province of Quebec, where she covered among other stories the Bloc Quebecois, the Montreal massacre, the Oka crisis and several election campaigns.She has won numerous awards for television and radio work, among them a Gemini; two gold medals from the New York Festival of Television; a selected screening at the Monte Carlo Television Festival; several awards and citations from the Columbia Television awards; a Gabriel award; a B'nai Brith Award and number of awards and citation from the National Radio and Television Association.A graduate of the University of Western Ontario, she lives and works in Toronto.