Linda Solomon Wood is CEO of Observer Media Group and Editor-In-Chief of National Observer. Solomon Wood is Founder of the Canadian Centre for Investigative Journalism. A longtime reporter, she has served on The Future of News Committee at the Public Policy Forum and will be sitting on the Board of Governors at the National Newspaper Awards. She is widely respected in the journalism community as a leader in public benefit reporting.
National Observer made history as the first digital-only publication to win a National Newspaper Award in May 2017, then in June, made history again as the first digital-only publication to receive a Michener Award citation at Rideau Hall for reporting in the public interest.
National Observer won a Canadian Association of Journalism award in 2017 as well. The publication was also a finalist for the Canadian Journalism Foundation Excellence in Journalism Award for 2015, while receiving 4 nominations from the Canadian Association of Journalists for various awards. The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals honoured Observer Media Group's reporting on British Columbia's trophy hunt with an award in 2014 and named National Observer's work again for reporting carried out in 2015.
Solomon Wood served for six years as Editor-in-Chief of Vancouver Observer. In 2012 and 2014, the Vancouver Observer received a Canadian Journalism Foundation Excellence in Journalism Award (Small Media). The Excellence in Journalism Award honours an organization that embodies exemplary journalistic standards and practices. A recipient of a 2015 Vancouver Board of Trade Wendy MacDonald Award for Entrepreneurial Innovation, Solomon Wood was honoured for building an inclusive new media company that served the community and provided opportunities for young people in a challenging environment.
Her first job as a reporter was at the Tennessean newspaper, where she was trained by Publisher John Seigenthaler to be an investigative journalist. There, she won the United Press International Award for Best Public Service Reporting and Best Investigative Reporting for a series of articles on Industrial Life Insurance. US Senate Hearings were triggered by the series. The hearings resulted in federal regulations regarding "industrial insurance" being changed to make the sale of it illegal. She won the Lincoln University Unity Award for Economic Reporting for a series on the challenges of life in Nashville's public housing projects. A second time Linda's reporting led to federal legislative hearings, this time based on a series she wrote on discrimination against nurse-midwives by doctors (chaired by Al Gore who was then a U.S. congressman, as well as a former Tennessean reporter).
When she first moved to Vancouver, she occasionally wrote for The Tyee. Her story on a Vancouver therapist who was Googled by customs officials at the U.S.-Canada border became the basis for a Colbert Report.
Solomon Wood grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee and attended Northwestern University.
She lived 15 blocks from the World Trade Center when the planes hit the towers and immigrated to Canada shortly after 9-11.
