Paul Brothers

Anchor/Co-host - The Morning News, Global Halifax

Bachelor of Journalism, 2007

I learned all kinds of things that still help me—like how to write for broadcast.

Paul Brothers is nothing if not strategic. He figures out what he wants, then he figures out how to get it.

“I had a goal when I was a teenager that I would be on national television as a sports anchor before I turned thirty,” Paul says, a little surprised recalling the brashness of his youth. But it was something he really wanted.

“I researched successful people in the business, and I found a lot of them had both experience and education. I realized I needed those two pillars to make a go of it.”

First on his list was getting some experience. He hosted school events and ceremonies. He got a job at the radio station in Grand Falls-Windsor near his hometown of Bishop’s Falls in central Newfoundland. Education was next on his list.

After getting a rejection notice from Ryerson University, Paul went to Memorial University for a BA. But that teenage goal was still alive and well, so he went to Algonquin College in Ottawa for a two-year television broadcast program. A year into it a teacher suggested he give King’s School of Journalism a try if he was really committed to his dream. He applied and got into the one-year Bachelor of Journalism program.

He says, “That was the educational component of my goal to have both experience and education. I learned all kinds of things that still help me—like how to write for broadcast.”

While he was at King’s he saw an ad for a job with MuchMusic’s program Going Coastal. Paul got the job and interviewed hundreds of bands from all genres. It wasn’t the dream job he had planned, but he says it was still a bona fide dream job.

But that dream ended when the show was cancelled. Paul was out of work. He almost took a job with an insurance company. He avoided even considering a suggested position as a DJ at strip club. Then he saw an ad for contestants on a reality show called Gillette Drafted: The Search for Canada’s Next Sportscaster.

Paul beat out 3000 other entrants and found himself working for theScore in Toronto. For three years he covered the professional sports scene across North America where he interviewed sports legends Steve Yzerman, Jerry Rice and Roberto Alomar. On occasion he filled in as a sports anchor on TV.

He still hadn’t reached his 30th birthday. Done and done.

But the sports game, while exciting at times, has its share of drudgery.

“The first time you go to a Leaf’s practice, and I was Leaf’s fan growing up, it’s fun. But the tenth time you go, and they have just lost 10 – 1 and no one wants to talk to you because you’re the media—well it ain’t that fun!”

So, after three years Paul found a new opportunity co-hosting the Morning News on Global Halifax. The dream of being a full-time sports anchor is on hold for the moment, but, strategist that he is, Paul is learning all he can about being a news anchor.

“I take pointers from other hosts. I watch them.”

It’s a good fit he says.

“The music job and sports job looked like dream jobs. But this is my dream job.”

For now.

Posted: May 2019