Mutsumi Takahashi to receive RTDNA lifetime achievement award

CTV Montreal's lead news anchor is being recognized for her lifetime of work with Montreal's top-rated newscast.

The Radio Television Digital News Association, RTDNA Canada, announced Tuesday it is honouring Mutsumi Takahashi with a lifetime achievement award.

She is one of three prominent journalists being recognized this year for devoting decades to news and current affairs.

Keith Leslie, who spent much of his career with the Canadian Press, and Scott Metcalfe, news director of 690 News radio in Toronto, are also being honoured.

Takahashi has been a familiar face to Montrealers for more than three decades, first as a reporter and later as an anchor for CFCF, now known as CTV Montreal.

For twenty years Takahashi shared the anchor desk with another RTDNA lifetime achievement award winner, Bill Haugland, until his retirement in 2006.

Born in Shiroishi, Japan, Takahashi studied piano at the Toronto Conservatory of Music at the age of six. She is a graduate of Vanier College and Concordia University, holding both a B.A. and M.B.A.

In the spring of 2013, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Concordia University.

Takahashi also volunteers her time by supporting countless charitable and community organizations. She was co-chair, along with the late Jean Beliveau, of the McGill University Health Centre fundraising campaign that helped make the new Glen site hospitals possible.

The trio will be presented with their awards on May 26, 2017, during the 2017 National Conference & Awards Gala in Toronto.