Barbara Caines is an award-winning multiplatform journalist, media leader, and professor and program co-ordinator of the Journalism program at Seneca Polytechnic.
She has led Seneca’s Journalism programs for over a decade, guiding students to numerous national awards and earning the Ontario Government’s LIFT Award for Teaching Excellence. A pioneer in journalism education, Caines created Seneca’s globally recognized Summer Institute of Multiplatform Journalism, with graduates working in anchoring, cross-platform reporting and content production in Canada, the United States, Brazil and France.
She developed Seneca Journalism’s academic pathway with the London College of Communication and continues to innovate curriculum through SPARC (Student Produced Authentic Reporting Collection) — an evolution of Seneca’s COIL initiative that she recently created. SPARC delivers industry-focused, independently reported multimedia journalism, producing original stories that engage real communities and reflect professional newsroom practice.
Caines is also a celebrated CBC documentary journalist, earning multiple awards for her reporting. Her career includes several national firsts: Canada’s first female sports director and the first woman to host daily and nightly sportscasts in a major market. The Detroit Free Press named her one of the Top 10 Sportscasters/Sports Reporters in the U.S. for her coverage of Detroit Red Wings player Bob Probert. She has hosted Health Matters, CBC News, Newsworld and Newsworld International.
She was recruited by Seneca to spearhead and build its Journalism programs — work that continues to shape industry-ready journalists today.