Paul Wells joins the Munk School as inaugural journalist fellow-in-residence

Veteran political journalist Paul Wells is joining the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy as the inaugural journalist fellow-in-residence for the 2022-23 academic year. 

In this newly created role, Wells will host a new podcast, The Paul Wells Show, in collaboration with the Munk School, Antica Productions and the National Arts Centre. The regularly scheduled podcast series will debut in fall 2022 and will focus on politics and culture, featuring interviews with leading politicians, public figures and expert commentators.

“We are so fortunate to have Paul Wells join us as the first-ever journalist fellow-in-residence at the Munk School,” said Munk School director Peter Loewen. “He is a skilled interviewer with a sharp wit and a deep knowledge of Canadian politics.”

In coordination with the podcast, Wells will host a series of live public events at the Munk School, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and in other major Canadian cities.

Wells has been a well-respected political journalist for nearly 30 years. He wrote for Maclean’s magazine for 19 years and has written for the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, the National Post and numerous other publications. His latest project, paulwells​.substack​.com, is a subscription-based newsletter that covers “politics and culture as though they mattered.”

A frequent commentator on French- and English-language television and radio, Wells moderated the national political leaders’ debates in 2015 and 2019. He has won four Gold National Magazine Awards and a National Newspaper Award, and filed stories from 17 countries around the world. His book on Stephen Harper, The Longer I’m Prime Minister, won three major non-fiction book awards: The Shaughnessy Cohen Prize, the John W. Dafoe Book Prize, and the Ottawa Book Award.

Wells studied at the University of Western Ontario and the Institut d’Etudes politiques de Paris.