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Articles by Maya Johnson

Maya Johnson

Anchor for CTV News Montreal at 5 p.m.

Montreal

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From general assignment reporter, to Quebec City Bureau Chief, to anchor of CTV News at 5 and CTV News at 11:30, Maya Johnson has been reporting for CTV Montreal since 2005, where she began as a summer intern while studying journalism at Concordia University.

In her freelance days, Maya wrote for the West Island Chronicle and the Montreal Community Contact, a bi-weekly newspaper serving the city’s Black and Caribbean community.

After graduating from Concordia with distinction, Maya was profiled as an up-and-coming journalist in "Watch This Face", a feature in the Montreal Gazette. She spent a session studying Italian at the Michelangelo Italian language and culture school in Florence, Italy, before heading back to the newsroom where she continued to cover a wide range of hard news and human-interest stories until she was hired as a permanent full-time reporter in 2012.

In 2016, she was nominated for the RTDNA Canada Adrienne Clarkson Diversity Award for her report “Faceoff”, a look at the history of Blackface and the controversy over its use in a Quebec theatre production. The following year, she was selected as one of 50 extraordinary Quebecers by Urbania magazine.

Maya has covered several election campaigns, at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels. She played a leading role covering the 2018 Quebec election campaign and reported live from CAQ headquarters in Quebec City when the party won a majority government, making history by being elected to power for the first time. During her five years as CTV Montreal’s first female Quebec City Bureau Chief covering politics at the National Assembly, Maya also covered other major breaking news stories emerging from the provincial capital – including the deadly mosque shooting in 2017, and the high-profile court case that followed.

In 2019, she was nominated for the RTDNA Canada Dave Rogers Award (Large Market) for her report “Standing Tall, A Survivor’s Journey”, a look at the recovery of Aymen Derbali, one of the men who survived the shooting.

She has twice been named Anglo Media Personality of the Year by Gala Dynastie, an annual award ceremony celebrating Black excellence in Quebec.

Throughout her career, Maya has covered breaking news across her home province – from the train derailment and explosion in Lac Megantic to the plane crash that killed former MP and political analyst Jean Lapierre in Iles-de-la-Madeleine. She was also sent to Ottawa to cover the shootings on Parliament Hill in 2014.

Maya, now a proud mother, loves spending quality time with her family and friends, listening to a wide range of music, and travelling – especially to Jamaica, the birthplace of her parents. She reads voraciously, collects vinyl records, and DJs for fun – mainly old school reggae!


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