Fifth Estate co-host Bob McKeown appointed to the Order of Canada

Fifth Estate co-hostBob McKeown'slist of accomplishments is already long and varied. The awards alone include twoEmmys, threeGeminisand even aGrey Cup championship.

Now the longtime CBC investigative journalist has received one of Canada's highest civilian honours:he's been named a member of the Order of Canada.

The office of the Governor General has appointed McKeownas a member ofthe national order "for his excellence in investigative journalism for television," Rideau Hall announced Wednesday in a news release.

"It's humbling," McKeown said of the honour."The more I've realized what it stands for and the kinds of people the breadth of the company it's humbling. It's a very nice thing to have happened at this point."

The 71 year-old is one of135appointees to Canada's national order.

A life of adventure

McKeown was born and raised in Ottawa. His father was a journalist who covered Parliament Hill and alsofrequently travelled internationally on assignment.

His dad's career madean impression on young Bob, whobecame a publisher at age five and started knocking on doors to hand out his own homemade newspaper.

"It just seemed like both the most romantic and adventuresome life to lead, and from the very beginning I wanted to do that," McKeown said. "But first I wanted to be an Ottawa Rough Rider."

Provided sports commentary at $35 a pop

McKeown played football at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., andfulfilled his dream when the Rough Rider's signed him. But Ottawa's Canadian Football League (CFL) team wasn't the only one who came calling for the new graduate. The CBC did, too.

Three times a week, for $35 a pop, he'd provide sports commentaryfor the local CBCRadio station in Ottawa.

"So 105 bucks a week, and I thought I was rich, rich, rich," he said.

"But it was perfect because in that one summer which was 50 years agoI started both of the careers which I'd been aspiring to since I was five."

McKeown would go on to play five seasons with the Rough Riders at the position of centre. He won a Grey Cup with them in 1973.

McKeownfirstjoinedThe Fifth Estatein 1981 as co-host. The day he interviewed for the job, he met his wife,Sheilagh D'Arcy McGee, whowas working as a researcher at the time. They've been married for 40 years and have four sons.

"The Fifth Estate has given me a lot in my professional and personal life. But that, of it all, was by far the most important," he said, referring tohis marriage.

It's not just intense investigative programs that gained him recognition.TheAcademy of Canadian Cinema & Television gave him two Gemini AwardsforThe Boys on the Bus, a 1987 documentary on theEdmonton Oilers team that won multiple Stanely Cups.

He won another Gemini for his writing on a 2004Fifth Estatesegmentabout Hondurans who were trying to flee the country.

His CBC colleague Diana Swain, now the show's executive producer, says McKeownembodies the qualities of a good investigative journalist.

"He is unfailingly polite.He's more soft spoken in person than I expected, and yet to know him as a journalist is to know that he is dogged," she said.

"When he believes you have a question that must be answered, he is unrelenting."

Wars and lawsuits

McKeownhas beenback withThe Fifth since 2003after stints with American news organizations such NBC and CBS.

It was with the latter that he did his most memorable and perhaps dangerous journalismwork when he and his crew arrived in Kuwait City during the Gulf War ahead ofcoalition forces.

"More by good luck than by good management, we ended up getting into Kuwait City about 24 hours before the liberation," McKeown said. "So we were there, the Iraqis were there, and we got to cover first hand the biggest story in the world at that point."

His Gulf War coverage won him an Emmy. And he won another one for his work on NBC'sDateline.

But whenaskedthe most notable story he's covered for CBC, one name came to McKeown's mind: "Peter Nygard."

The 80-year-old clothing mogul is facing charges in both Canada and the United States after dozens of women accused him of sexual assault spanningdecades.

"We told that story first," McKeown said. "It was almost a dozen years ago when we told it, and no one had touched him at that point, in large part because he was very litigious and if you set an apostrophe wrong in your story, he was going to have you in court."

Nygard filed a number of lawsuits against CBC and the specific journalists investigating him including one that saw McKeown charged with criminal libel.

"In this case, if we were convicted, we would have been open to up to five years in prison," McKeown said.

Still asking tough questions

At 71, McKeownis still working withThe Fifth.

These may be tough economic times for the media industry, but he's optimistic about the future of investigative journalism.

"Never in my lifetime and careerhas there been more material, and has there been more ways to get at it and to tell it," he said. "I find this a very exciting time to be a journalist to be honest."

McKeown's push forjustice extends beyond journalism. He'scalled on the CFLto do more to protect players from head trauma and hascommitted to donating his own brain to concussion research.

"He's enthusiastic about things that he values and that are important to him, but he's not afraid to ask tough questions about anything," said Swain.

So what's the secret to success for the new Member of the Order of Canada?

McKeown admittedit may sound cliche, but said it has worked for him.

"Find out what you're good at, find out what you love, and hope that the two are one in the same," he said. "That's the way it has been with me. I have never, literally from the time I was five years-old, wondered about what I wanted to do.

"God bless the fates.Here I am that much later, and I'm still doing it."