In the present

There's an arguement to be made for taking life as it comes. Just ask CBC journalist Rita Celli

 

By Caitlin Kenny

kenn0290@algonquincollege.com

 

Through the wide pane of glass that separates the studio from the control room you can see the crown of her deep chestnut mane peek out from underneath heavy black headphones. What you can’t see is the smile spread across her face. It’s obstructed by the vitals for a radio show: a large studio microphone, a computer screen, a paper stand.

 

But it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to see her face to know she is smiling; you just have to hear her. As Rita Celli’s smooth, warm voice plays through the speakers in the control room and in homes and cars across the province, you can hear the smile as she speaks. And, given all that she’s accomplished, she definitely has a lot to be smiling about.

 

Nearing her twentieth year of work as a journalist for CBC, Celli has successfully made a name for herself the news world - in both television and radio. As anchor of the evening television broadcast, she was the face of local news. Now, she’s the voice of Ontario Today, a noon-hour radio show where listeners across Ontario crowd the phone lines everyday to share their views.

 

But, these milestones were never part of Celli’s life plan, because there never was a plan. Unlike many accomplished individuals, she never laid out a map of where she wanted her career to go. She never strategized each step she’d have to take to get where she wanted to be. Her route to success wasn’t typical. With no determined plan of where she wanted to end up, she kept an open mind and found her way to the top.

 

The unplanned path traces back to Sudbury, Celli’s hometown. Quite the academic, Celli made it through high school scoring high grades in all courses with perhaps the exception of gym. She didn’t need sports to keep her busy after school, though. Debating, public speaking and the school newspaper kept her days full.

 

There was never a time when she thought “When I grow up I want to be a journalist.” But there was an early interest in politics. “I loved The Fifth Estate when I was young, believe it or not,” recalls Celli. Other memories include watching the Ontario Tory leadership convention at her aunt’s house in Timmins, where she stayed during an out-of-town high school debating competition.

 

As high school ended, Celli decided to leave Sudbury to study. Unsure of what she wanted to do, she applied to social work, teacher’s college and journalism at Carleton University. Her love of writing pushed her to choose the latter.

 

Juggling part-time jobs with studies kept Celli busy outside class hours. She worked as a page on Parliament Hill and in the office of a member of Parliament. In class, she was a quiet student, recalls former journalism professor Roger Bird. “But when she started to talk, it was worth listening too,” he said. “She struck me as a card-carrying intellectual.”

 

This sense of respect was undoubtedly mutual, considering that when Celli faced one of the most difficult decisions of her life, it was Bird who she went to for help. Panic set in as Celli realized that, upon graduation, life as she knew it was about to change dramatically. “All of a sudden after 22 years of getting up and going to school, that was going to end,” she says. “That was scary.”

 

With two jobs offers laid out before her, Celli had to decide which direction she wanted to go – a choice she simply could not make. One would lead her into the world of magazine journalism through a position with Canadian Geographic. The other would bring her back to more familiar territory: to Sudbury as a reporter for CBC Radio, where she had recently interned.

 

So Celli visited her prof to seek his advice. Bird was working as a night editor in the Southam news room at the time. Celli was in the middle of her last exam period ever, her study time burdened by the decision she’d have to make. Aside from the job itself, there were other factors to consider. The CBC job would mean returning home to a strict Italian family and leaving behind friends and her first serious boyfriend.

 

As she presented her case to Bird that evening, his response was simple, yet it sticks with Celli even today. “Rita, you will always have regrets,” he told her. “Stop worrying about where you want to be 10 years from now, just think about where you want to be three months from now.”

 

A simple message, but exactly what Celli needed to hear. “This seemed like the greatest wisdom in the world,” Celli says with a chuckle. “It’s like the skies opened up.”

 

With a new sense of calm, she returned to her house in the Glebe and closed herself in her bedroom, away from her four roommates. She grabbed two pieces of paper and a gift bag – the tools she would use to make her final decision. She scribbled each job onto the papers and stuck them inside the bag. She was going to select her job at random.

 

Celli shook the bag and stuck her hand inside. When she pulled out that fateful piece of paper and saw Canadian Geographic, much to her surprise, her heart sank.

 

In that split second, Celli realized what she wanted to do. “I knew for whatever reason I had to do what was in that bag – and that was the job at CBC,” explains Celli.

 

Just a week after graduating, Celli went back to Sudbury for the job at CBC. Four years later, she returned to Ottawa to report in the CBC news room here. As her reputation grew, she began filling in for, and eventually becoming, a host for CBC’s morning radio show.

 

All the while, Celli remained without a specific plan and open to new opportunities – an attitude that helped her make a great career leap. In 2001, Celli became the Ottawa host of CBC’s supper-hour television news program, Canada Now (known today as Ottawa News at Six). Finally, that warm, smooth voice heard on the radio could be matched to its equally friendly face.

 

But the switchover from radio to television didn’t come without its challenges. “Your voice is your tool in radio,” explains Randy Dash, a professor in television broadcasting at Algonquin College. “But when you go to TV, a visual medium, there are a lot of methods you have to learn.” Methods like using teleprompters and shooting with multiple cameras – methods unknown to the radio world.

 

Yet in the end, these challenges didn’t halt Celli’s progress in making a name for herself. For Chris Dornan, who taught Celli as a first-year journalism student, her success comes as no surprise. “You can teach technical skills,” he explains, “but in order to have a personality that can command a camera or a microphone, you have to be born with it - and Rita was born with it.”

 

This natural talent partnered with her honed journalism skills helped Celli establish a solid reputation. That’s why there was a buzz of excitement at CBC in 2006 when news hit that Celli would be coming home to radio, this time as host of Ontario Today. “Rita came with a track record,” says Margot Wright, the show’s producer. “She had done radio and TV, so people within the CBC had high expectations.”

 

Now in her third season with Ontario Today, Wright can proudly say that Celli has met those expectations – and there are numbers to prove it. The show’s ratings have been climbing across the province, including its rank as third in Ottawa. Even in the huge, competitive Toronto market, the show now sits at number four. “That says a lot about Rita Celli and her journalism,” boasts Wright.

 

Others on the Ontario Today team agree. “Rita is a deeply committed professional,” says Laurie Fagan, who works closely with Celli as a reporter for the show. “She always wants to push it more and give it her best.”

 

In fact, although Celli never pushed her career in a preset direction, it would be a great mistake to confuse this with laziness or lack of engagement. Celli is fully engaged and driven; it’s just that her focus is on the present, not the future.

 

At work, she pushes herself hard. “I’m serious about trying to do the best I can,” she says. Nothing is accidental. Not the stories, the interviews, the promos. Rather, her work is the fruit of careful planning, research and contemplation.

 

This effort is apparent to those around her, even those just getting to know her. Lynn Douris, a senior producer for CBC Television who worked with Celli when she was on the evening news, recognised this drive for perfection right away.

 

“The first week I worked with her, I remember thinking she really cares a lot about what the program is like at the end of the day,” says Douris. “Those impressions proved to be true.”

 

But this quality comes at a price. “Everything matters. It can be really exhausting to live or work with someone like that,” says Celli, admitting she knows she can sometimes push people too hard as she strives for the best.

Fortunately, she makes an effort to keep peace with others by pulling back when appropriate – a break she rarely grants herself, though. “I suffer from it most,” she says, recalling nights spent awake at 2 a.m. mulling things over in her head, not knowing how to shut it down.

 

Despite being a detriment to sleep, Celli’s thoughtfulness and care serve her well in her professional life and personal life, too. “She always remembers what you’re doing,” says Teri Loretto, a friend Celli met during one of her acting adventures before helping her score a job with CBC. “She always says ‘Oh, how’s this?’ about something you mentioned to her in passing a few weeks earlier. Everything matters to Rita.”

 

This thoughtfulness certainly keeps friends around. There is no shortage of guests at her table when the hobbyist cook and her husband Ric play dinner host: friends from recent times as well as friends who go back to Celli’s childhood and high school days.

 

Even the table settings scream of Celli’s thoughtfulness. “You go to her place and again, all the little details – matching plates, name cards,” explains Susan Lunn, a national reporter for CBC Radio who has been friends with Celli ever since their early days with CBC in Sudbury.

 

Back in the studio, Celli’s listeners seem to appreciate her hard work. No matter what the topic of the day is – and they range greatly, from political issues to the more mundane, such as rooted vegetables – her listeners flood the phone lines to share their views.

 

And the fans don’t hesitate to express their appreciation either. While tidying up after a lively call-in about bargain shopping, Wright teases Celli about words of praise from a listener. “Everything you do, Rita, is wonderful,” mimics Wright. Celli just laughs and brushes it off humbly.

 

It’s not the admiration or the recognition that makes Celli tick. Never mind the awards she has scored for her journalism, including an award in 1999 from the Canadian Association of Journalists for an investigative piece she worked on about a Cornwall pedophile ring. For Celli, the real reward comes from her callers.

 

“It’s a real blessing,” she says. “I just can’t think of anything better. What a unique job where you can make these emotional connections with people and expand your understanding of life through their experiences.”

Celli has made her way to the top as a journalist, and she did it her way – without a specific plan. “There’s something to be said for not thinking too far ahead and trying something you never thought you’d try,” says Lunn. “I don’t think Rita would have said when we were young that she wanted to be a news TV anchor – but she did it and she did it well.”

 

With so many talents and a strong reputation, the future is bright for Celli.

 

While her colleagues credit her with the ability to move on to host a network show, she says she’s not wedded to being on air. “I’d be quite happy producing or doing other sorts of things. I still love news reporting.”

 

Although Celli’s future is as open and unplanned as it has ever been, Douris points out one thing that is clear: “Wherever Rita decides to go, she’ll go there."