Michael Dennis Duffy (born May 27, 1946) is a former Canadian senator and former Canadian television journalist. Prior to his appointment to the upper house in 2008, he was the Ottawa editor for CTV News Channel. In turning 75 on May 27, 2021, Duffy retired from the senate due to mandatory retirement rules.
Early life
Mike Duffy was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island to Lillian and Wilfrid Duffy. He is a grandson of Charles Gavan Duffy, a PEI Liberal MLA and Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island.
Duffy studied humanities at St. Dunstan's College.
Journalism career
Duffy became a ham radio operator at the age of 16 and began his career as a teen disc jockey at CFCY-TV. He moved to print journalism with The Guardian in Charlottetown. In 1965, he served as news director at CKDH-FM in Amherst, Nova Scotia before heading to CFCF in Montreal as a lineup and assignment editor in 1969, and in 1971, he joined CFRA radio in Ottawa as a political reporter.
Duffy joined CBC radio's Parliament Hill bureau in 1974, and became a reporter for the flagship television newscast The National in 1977. Duffy became the lead CBC television reporter on Parliament Hill and covered the elections and most of the important federal stories of the Trudeau, Clark and Mulroney governments. Duffy is primarily known for his work as an Ottawa journalist, but he has been a foreign correspondent. He covered the fall of South Vietnam in April 1975 and was one of the last journalists to leave before the arrival of North Vietnamese troops and Viet Cong insurgents.
In 1988, Duffy joined Baton Broadcasting as the first host of its Sunday morning news program Sunday Edition based in Ottawa. When that series ended in 1999, Duffy moved to his role as a show host and interviewer with CTV Newsnet (now the CTV News Channel). Long known as an "Ottawa insider", he was able to get many elected officials to appear on his programs. Duffy hosted two programs on CTV Newsnet, Countdown with Mike Duffy and Mike Duffy Live, which was broadcast in the supper hour news slot. Duffy was also a popular speaker at conferences, annual meetings and other events across Canada and, writer Stevie Cameron noted in her 1990 book Ottawa Inside Out, was probably the most-recognized journalist on Parliament Hill.
On May 27, 2009, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled Duffy violated Canadian broadcasting codes during the 2008 Canadian federal election. It concluded that Duffy's decision to re-broadcast an earlier ATV Halifax broadcast of ‘false starts’ of an interview with then-Liberal leader Stephane Dion “was not fair, balanced, or even handed.” The Panel also concluded that, during the same broadcast, Duffy “significantly misrepresented the view of one of the three members of his Panel...Liberal MP Geoff Regan.” The panel thus concluded “that the consistent misrepresentation by host Mike Duffy of the MP’s point of view constituted an unfair and improper presentation of opinion or comment contrary to clause 6 of the CAB Code of Ethics."
Awards and honours
In 1986, he won an ACTRA Award for live television reporting, for his coverage of the 1985 Turkish embassy attack in Ottawa by the Armenian Revolutionary Army. In 1994, Duffy was inducted into the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Duffy has received honorary degrees from the University of Prince Edward Island, as well as Wilfrid Laurier University and from Niagara University in Niagara Falls, New York. He has been a visiting fellow at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, and has been twice nominated for the "best in the business" award by the Washington Journalism Review.
In 2002, he was awarded the Golden Jubilee Medal by the Governor General of Canada on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II.
Political career
On December 22, 2008, Duffy was named a Prince Edward Island representative to the Senate on the advice of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, sitting as a Conservative. He subsequently retired as a TV journalist at the end of 2008. He was introduced to the Senate on 26 January 2009 immediately prior to the Speech from the Throne.
