Bakari Savage

Bakari Savage joined CP24 in July 2021. He is the co-anchor of one of CP24’s flagship shows, "CP24 Live at 5." Since joining CP24, Bakari has reported on a number of high-profile stories in the city, including the inaugural visit of Mary Simon, Canada’s first Indigenous Governor General, to Queen’s Park in 2022. Bakari conducted an exclusive interview with Adam Attala, the teen hero who saved children from a burning home in Mississauga, Ont., as well as the deadly Father’s Day 2022 shootings in the GTA, and the Uxbridge, Ont., tornado. Bakari was a 2020-2021 Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow through The Carter Center, having spent the year documenting the effects of COVID-19 isolation on the psyche of tweens and teens, young and middle-aged adults alike. This designation was the culmination of almost a decade of work as a broadcast journalist, including time spent as a reporter for WBRC Fox 6 News, in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, ground zero of the American civil rights movement. During his tenure there, Bakari was also host of the lifestyle segment, “Magic City Weekend," which showcased the best restaurants, bars and entertainment around the city. In addition to previous fellowships with SciLine and the University of South Carolina’s School of Law Media Law School, Bakari was also an anchor and reporter for “Good Day Carolinas” at Fox 46 WJZY in Charlotte, North Carolina, and “The Morning Show” with Independent station WJXT in Jacksonville, Florida. His broadcast journalism career began at CBS affiliate KNOE in Monroe, Louisiana before moving to the NBC affiliate KARK in Little Rock, Arkansas and then to News 13 in Orlando. Civic responsibility is very important to Bakari. He is a board member for On River Time, a non-profit organization working to interrupt the cycle of abuse and neglect through events such as fly-fishing and scholarship, and CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind), a non-profit organization driven to change what it is to be blind. Bakari graduated from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, with a double major in communication studies and political science. He is a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity where he is a Life Loyal Sig as well as a member of the Canadian Association of Black Journalists (CABJ) and the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). He moved to Toronto from the U.S. in 2020, to marry his wife, Jamie. Bakari speaks English and conversational Italian.