Priya Sam Biography
We are all familiar with TV shows and Podcasts that bring the struggles and triumphs people have experienced in life. We love these shows because we are familiar with the story being told. In most cases, people familiar with the stories are the hosts. The desire to start the show stemmed from their own experience. In this article, we are going to cover the story of Priya Sam. Most of us know her as a former national news anchor, host, reporter, and the host of Turning Point. If you are reading this article, you probably want to know more about her and how she landed on one of the watched TV Shows in Canada. Here is what we found about her.
Priya Sam Age and Husband
She was born on 30th December 1984. Priya descends from India but identifies as a Canadian. On matters of family, she got married to her long-time friend and partner Duncan in October 2020. The couple is yet to have children but we can expect them sometime in 2023 or in the future.
Education
From a young child, Priya was ambitious an attribute she learned from her father. Her father insisted on her becoming a journalist but Priya wanted to become a teacher. As she grew up, journalism became interesting. She went to school at the University of Western Ontario to study media and Information Technology. The course also offered a diploma in broadcast journalism, which she did at Fanshawe College.
After graduating, Priya was mixed up and confused about her future. She wanted to travel around the world but on the other hand, she was broke and had student loans. The best option was embarking on her childhood teaching dream. Initially, she had planned to teach for a year but she ended up teaching English in South Korea for 6 years.
While in South Korea, the journalism bug led her to do writing and work at a radio station. After 6 years, Priya realized her passion for journalism was great. She applied and got an opportunity to study master’s in broadcast journalism at Kings College at Dalhousie, Halifax.
Starting at CTV
Before graduating her master’s, she got an internship opportunity at CTV Atlantic and later was hired on a part-time basis as a newsroom assistant. Her responsibilities involved, printing scripts, responding to phone calls, controlling the teleprompter, and shadowing reporters.
Her hard work later paved the way for anchoring when the then-anchor went on vacation. It gave her the opportunity to anchor late-night shows. As a late-night anchor, Priya got interested to work as a morning show host because she needed to work more hours to afford her rent. Training as a morning show host got her an opportunity for the job and soon she was the face of CTV Atlantic every morning.
Working in the morning shows exposed her to many people in the media business, including producers and reporters working in the headquarters station in Toronto. Meeting with these producers opened for her a great opportunity as they gave her a chance to fill in the national morning show for 3 days.
Three months after her fill-in opportunity, she learned that the person she had filled in for, Lindsey Deluce, announced pregnancy leave. Priya applied for the job and after some time, she was called for the job as the host of the national morning show in Toronto.
After two years of serving as a host, Priya left media to work for her own Podcast called Turning Point. In the show, she invites guests who share with the audience about the experiences they’ve had, lessons learned,ed and victories along the way. On the show, she has interviewed guests like Mary Berg, Farah Nasser, and Jonathan Torrens. Tessa Virtue and others.
Leaving CTV and Starting Turning Point
Leaving journalism to start her own show was not in Priya’s career plans. It was a necessity for survival. Most people love the glamour and fame that comes with media personalities but few are aware of the mental battles the journalists have to fight. Priya was close to a mental breakdown after tolerating microaggression, gaslighting, and racism both at CTV Atlantic and Toronto.
Stories of people of color were regularly turned down by the media stations, employees of color were also discriminated against and looked down upon, and their protests were looked at as too sensitive and unnecessary. Many times, Priya felt vulnerable, undermined, and small. She took counseling sessions, which helped her to leave the toxic work environment.
Her story became widely approved by many people of color who congratulated her for sharing her stories and others for sharing the experience they have had. Stories from other people encouraged her to start her podcast. The first season of the podcast was very successful. She did 25 stories that got a 100 % 5-star ratings and 50,000 plus views and downloads
Her life has turned out better than she had planned. She is now married and working in a job she has full control of the content that reaches people. She does not have a LinkedIn profile but her content can be found on Instagram. You can catch her podcast content here.
