Janice Johnston, a CBC journalist whose decades-long career shaped justice and crime reporting in Edmonton and Alberta, died Friday. She was 62.
Johnston, who was born in London, Ont., on March 2, 1960, died of cancer after a brief illness.
Johnston covered Alberta courts and crime for more than three decades and her dedication to the beat was unmatched.
She is survived by her husband Scott Johnston, her daughter Samantha Milles, son-in-law Demetri Milles and her granddaughter Calliope (Cali).
In an interview Friday, Samantha Milles said her mother excelled as a journalist right from the start, and always had an “electric spark” that drove her work.
“She was covering stories just a few months ago that she still had so much passion to talk about and cared so deeply about. It was her calling, I truly feel, to do the job that she did,” Milles said.
She pursued her stories with determination, said Stephanie Coombs, CBC Edmonton’s director of journalism and programming.
“Janice was the kind of journalist who lived and breathed the news,” Coombs said.
“She strongly believed in her role as a crime reporter to tell the public about what went on in the criminal justice system, both in the courts and behind the scenes. If something was secret and in the public interest, Janice wanted to dig into it and bring it into the light.”
Johnston studied radio and television arts at then-Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University), and got her first job working in Wingham, Ont.
She moved to Edmonton in the 1980s, first working at radio station CISN as a reporter and later as a news director. She moved on to work at CFRN-TV as a reporter. She started at CBC in the early 2000s.