Bill Gillespie

Bill Gillespie (born March 10, 1946), is a Canadian journalist and author. He is the former security correspondent for CBC News and former bureau chief of CBC Radio's Moscow bureau. As a foreign correspondent, Gillespie reported extensively from Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya and the Russian Caucuses, relaying information on the fall of the Taliban, the deadly siege of Beslan School Number One and the dismantling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad's central square.

Early life
Born in Melfort, Saskatchewan, Gillespie attained a master's degree in labour history from Memorial University of Newfoundland.

CBC
Gillespie spent the first twelve years of his CBC career in St. John's, Newfoundland, reporting for both radio and television. In 1989, he joined CBC's Parliamentary Bureau as a reporter, producer and occasional host of the national CBC Radio News weekly political affairs show, The House. Gillespie then spent the next five years in Toronto as a National Radio Reporter for CBC Radio, where he covered the rise of the Harris government, environmental issues and the Krever Inquiry into tainted blood. During this period, Gillespie won several awards for his coverage of the environment and homelessness.

Between 2005 and his retirement from the CBC in 2011, Gillespie was the CBC's Security Correspondent. He reported extensively on Canada's intelligence agencies, the Air India Inquiry, the Toronto 18 and Canadian Omar Khadr, and Guantanamo Bay. During this time, Gillespie also contributed various stories to the NPR radio syndicator and the C-SPAN television network. In 2011 he was accused of defaming Canadian Jewish group the Jewish Defence League of Canada (JDL) after describing them as terrorists on-air; he and editor Esther Enkin subsequently apologised and claimed he was quoting the Canadian government.

Since then he has campaigned for journalists to be free from government interference, opposing plans to allow the government to be involved in negotiating contracts between the CBC and its employees.

Foreign correspondent
Gillespie's career as a foreign correspondent was launched with a posting to Moscow in 2001. Since September 11, 2001, he reported extensively from Afghanistan. He was in Afghanistan when the first American bombs began to fall, and he followed the Northern Alliance army as it removed the Taliban from power. Gillespie also conducted the first interviews with Canadian soldiers returning from combat.

In Moscow, Gillespie reported on Russia's struggle to shed its Soviet past and become a European-style democracy. Central to these stories was Vladimir Putin and the Putin-inspired transformation of Russian - U.S. relations. Other stories chronicled Putin's less successful attempts to change the Russian bureaucracy's Soviet mind-set.

Film producer
Currently, Gillespie is a consulting producer and writer on a documentary that explores how 9/11 has impacted Canadian Muslims, and a documentary about the persecution of the Chittagong Hill Tracts people of Bangladesh.

Author
Gillespie is the author of a book entitled, A Class Act: An Illustrated History of the Labour Movement in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Awards
Gillespie has won several awards over the course of his career including the New York Festivals Award, an Amnesty International Award and a National Science Award.

Family
His son Alex Gillespie was killed by a Toronto Transit Commission bus in 2010 and Gillespie along with his family took out a $8m lawsuit against TTC.