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DON YOUNG – brief biography

Don Young arrived in Canada in 1966 from Glasgow, Scotland. His family is from a long line of social rabble-rousers and working class poets.

Graduating from the University of Alberta in 1975 he freelanced for the Calgary Albertan and the Edmonton Journal newspapers before finding a place with CBC Radio as a Senior Producer on the CBC radio show: Morningside.

In 1982 he was a founding producer of CBC’s ‘The Journal’ nightly current affairs TV program. He spent ten years as a field producer for The Journal producing news magazine style documentaries from many international locations.

Since leaving the CBC for independent production he has written and directed documentaries for a variety of A-list clients including: the rock band U2 (The Edge was his boss), CTV, Global, PBS, Fox Sports One, Doctors Without Borders, Discovery Canada, History Television, and the Sundance Channel.

In 2008 he was appointed the Executive Producer of the CTV/Rogers Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Olympic Games broadcast consortium where he commissioned over 400 athlete focused stories from the independent community.

Following the London Olympics he was the founding partner of the Ottawa/Toronto based prodco ‘Those Canadians Media Group’ which produced ‘snackable’ short form commercial content for Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. 

Over the course of his career, he has been fortunate to win – 3 Geminis, a Canadian Screen Award, an ACTRA Award, a Yorkton Film Festival Golden Sheaf, and a US Cable Emmy.

During the long COVID winter Don wrote a feature length screenplay (“Justice at Medicine Hat”) plus a Virtual Reality human rights documentary on the trial of Adoph Eichmann. His on-going 'passion project' is a stage play he is writing about his journey through an episode of depression and isolation.

His non-professional interests are in helping the under privileged members of our community use the narrative power of social media to bring their lives into the mainstream spotlight.

Don has taught widely at J-schools and colleges across Canada and is (or so he thinks) a reasonably entertaining 'after dinner speaker'. 

He presently lives in Regina.