Ross Howard is:

an award-winning media specialist with more than 30 years of achievement as a journalist and writer with strong analytical skills and proven ability to deliver exceptional communications services including news and feature writing, essays, releases, briefings, speeches and information documents.

Based on a reporting career with Canada’s pre-eminent daily newspaper The Globe and Mail , and other leading media outlets, Ross Howard has extended his media and communications skills since 1999 to serve private and public clients and institutions as a writer and editor, communications consultant, educator and facilitator, in Canada and abroad.

Operating as Ross Howard Writing Co, clients include the federal National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy (Ottawa), the Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University; Philanthropic Foundations Canada; the Canadian International Development Agency (Ottawa); the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society (Vancouver and Toronto) and a number of international clients including International Media Support (Denmark), the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, the United Nations, and PACT Inc. (Washington.)

Work for the National Roundtable included writing the first 10-year look-ahead essay-style report on the critical challenges to the Canadian environment-economy interface, which became the Roundtable’s signature document; summaries and media briefings on various Roundtable reports; and opinion pieces for the Roundtable chairman for national media placement.

For the Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Ross Howard analyzed proceedings of a three-day international conference on urban development and transportation to produce a publicly-accessible summary for international distribution. A separate successful project involved writing most of the essential information for the Centre’s new website.

For the Canadian International Development Agency, Ross Howard has worked with Ottawa partners to provide communications advice and services to the minister. For the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society, a Vancouver-based NGO, Ross Howard has written handbooks on conflict-sensitive reporting, and election reporting, for journalists in emerging democracies. The handbooks are available in 5 languages. International clients have employed Ross Howard as an analyst, trainer and facilitator in countries including Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Rwanda, Nepal and Burundi. For the United Nations Secretary-General’s Office, he analyzed media roles in Islamic-Western world relations.

As a freelance writer, Ross Howard is a regular contributor of feature-length and cover-piece articles for BC Business Magazine, the largest-circulation business-and public affairs magazine in British Columbia. Recent articles have examined the beleaguered British Columbia private education and training industry, the collapse of British Columbia energy security, the region’s vulnerability to global energy pricing, the regional shortage in skilled trades, the economic development potential of the 2010 Olympic Games, the bio-tech industry’s campaign for international recognition, the lack of economic investment promotion in the Lower Mainland, the success of private sector and First Nation joint entrepreneurship, the potential of emissions trading in BC, and the campaign to win a Vancouver television licence. All of these articles involved extensive research and exceptional writing to compellingly engage and inform readers with a big-picture approach to significant issues. The articles have ranged from 2,000 to 5,500 words in length.

Other media who have featured freelance pieces of varying length from Ross Howard include The Vancouver Sun , Maclean’s magazine and Media magazine.

Ross Howard also is a faculty member at Langara College School of Journalism in Vancouver, a member of Western Edge Productions documentary production company, a former instructor at the Simon Fraser School of Writing and Publishing, and as Assignment Editor at Vancouver Television (CTV ) he was responsible for the selection and assignment of news and daily television news-gathering operations in 1999-2000.

Ross Howard was Vancouver-based National Correspondent for The Globe and Mail 1994-1999; Senior Parliamentary Correspondent in Ottawa 1984-1994; Toronto reporter 1982-1984; has also worked for The Toronto Star , been a public information officer and speech-writer for the Government of Ontario, and a CBC Radio and Television guest commentator. He holds an Honours BA from York University and a Journalism Economics certificate from the University of Western Ontario.

Ross Howard is recognized and has been awarded for his writing talents and capacity to craft information material which is distinctive for its comprehensive content and compelling style, produced to achieve clients’ requirements and interests on time and within budget.

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