Early Life and Career
He was educated at Lower Canada College, Montréal, and at universities in Canada, France, Britain, and Germany. He worked as a reporter on the Montreal Star 1935-37, as associate editor 1937-38, and was editor of the Montréal Standard in 1938. He joined the Wartime Information Board in 1942 and was general manager 1944-45. In late 1945, at age 33, he was appointed the first full-time chairman of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Throughout the controversies that arose over the funding and regulation of the new medium of television, Dunton was a persuasive defender of the corporation's independence and a strong advocate of the need to fund publicly a television system. Shortly after the CBC completed its network from coast to coast in July 1958, he resigned and became president of Carleton University. Dunton was widely commended for the tact and intelligence with which he had overseen the development of CBC television.
He was appointed by Prime Minister Lester Pearson co-chairman, (with André Laurendeau), of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1963, which has profoundly influenced federal government language policies. He stepped down as Carleton's president in 1972 to become director of the Institute of Canadian Studies at Carleton (1973–78) and later fellow of the Institute. He was a Companion of the Order of Canada and received honorary diplomas from seven Canadian universities. The Dunton Tower at Carleton University is named in his honour.
Read more about this topic: Davidson Dunton
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. For, as early as 1769,... he had said of them, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.””
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“This form, this face, this life
Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me
Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,
The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)