Who I Am After All

by Jeff Ansell

Overview

You may recognize Jeff Ansell's voice from CHUM radio or his face from City-TV, but the behind-the-scenes tales of his life are even more fascinating than the stories he uncovered.

In this unflinchingly honest and vulnerable memoir, Jeff reveals his investigative reporting escapades, from hunting Nazi war criminals living in Canada, to inciting the closure of an abusive nursing home, and even going undercover as a drug addict to expose medical fraud. He then steps over to the other side of the microphone to provide media and crisis training to thousands of people worldwide, including PG&E during the Erin Brockovich case and BP's partner during the Deepwater Horizon disaster. He even became an instructor at Harvard Law School and lecturer
at Harvard Business School, despite being a high school dropout.

And that's just scratching the surface. Jeff's uncanny ability to meet celebrities leads to hilarious and heartwarming interactions (usually), and he recognizes the irony of being an on-air personality and keynotes speaker plagued with panic attacks. He opens up about how grieving changed his relationship to spirituality, and doesn't pull any punches when guiding us through his tumultuous battle with illness.

One thing is for sure-Jeff lived a full life, and this entertaining and inspirational memoir is proof of it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781039108431
Publisher:	FriesenPress
Publication date:	01/16/2023
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

Jeff Ansell is an award-winning investigative journalist, TV news anchor, radio host, keynotes speaker, and media and crisis communications trainer. His radio documentary exposing corrupt physicians, Pillers of Parkdale, was nominated for the Canadian Governor General's Award for public service in journalism and earned him top honors from the Radio Television Digital News Association for the most significant contribution to the improvement of news gathering.

Jeff lectured at two MBA courses at Harvard Business School and co-chaired and taught the Dealing with an Angry Public course offered by the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, affiliated with the Harvard Kennedy School. His book When the Headline is You: An Insider's Guide to Handling the Media was a top seller in the PR category of Amazon, and his video program Communicating with Confidence on LinkedIn Learning regularly receives the highest rankings from viewers worldwide.

Jeff was an avid world traveler. He lived with his wife, Annie, in Toronto, Ontario until his passing in 2021.

Editorial Reviews

2022-11-28
Recollections of a long and successful career as a reporter and media coach.

Ansell grew up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Montreal plagued by a “huge inferiority complex”—his father, Moe, was both verbally and physically abusive and not the kind of man to offer words of encouragement. However, the author was enchanted by the radio as a young boy and in that enthusiasm found solace—when he was only 10 years old, he used to pretend to be a radio announcer with one of his cousins, also named Jeff. Ansell dropped out of high school, and when he was 17—he lied and claimed to be 19—he landed his first job in the business reading the morning news on CFMB radio. The author went on to enjoy a career in media that lasted nearly a half-century as a reporter for both radio and television stations, and he eventually became a media coach in charge of his own firm. Ansell’s work was fascinatingly varied—he helped expose Nazi war criminals and crooked doctors, and he met celebrities like Bill Clinton and Bruce Springsteen. This memoir is more than a professional autobiography: Ansell also recounts, always candidly and often poignantly, his deepest fears, including those stirred by a triple bypass heart surgery and a bout with cancer: “I wasn’t scared of dying. I was more frightened of being forgotten. That once I crossed over, people, including family and friends, would never think or speak of me again. That thought frightened me.” Especially for those interested in a career in media, Ansell’s book is an enlightening peek into that world, an incisive insider’s tour. However, for others, this memoir might be too idiosyncratic.

A memoir too narrowly personal to magnetize the attention of a broad readership.

Kirkus Reviews