Helen Surgenor
Helen Surgenor focuses on the point where celebrity lives, television and music collide with wider conversations about politics, technology and fan behaviour for the CBC’s entertainment unit. Her pieces take a single news moment - a relationship milestone, a new trailer, a contentious photo or a casting announcement - and explain why it matters, drawing out how audiences, brands and platforms respond. Her background working on the CBC’s daily news podcast World Report shapes a style built around fast-turn explainers, clear context and a tight focus on what is new.
Celebrity relationships and public image
Surgenor devotes a significant portion of her recent coverage to the way high-profile relationships and family decisions play out in public and online. She has reported on Tom Holland confirming that he and Zendaya have married, unpacking how months of speculation fuelled by stylists and social media culminated in a simple on-the-record acknowledgement. She follows similar terrain in her piece on Jim Carrey marrying Min Ah, treating the wedding as both a personal milestone and a continuation of a relationship that had already been introduced to the public earlier in the year.
Her story on Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise’s daughter, Suri, dropping her father’s last name looks at naming as a marker of identity and independence, connecting a formal change on paper to years of tabloid interest. In coverage of Britney Spears defending her behaviour in a moving vehicle after a DUI charge, Surgenor concentrates on the singer’s own explanation and on how long-running narratives about Spears influence the response to a short video clip.
Across these pieces, she reports the facts of the event but also foregrounds how fans, commentators and the subjects themselves frame what is happening, making reputation and image part of the entertainment story.
Comedy, politics and digital culture
Another clear strand in Surgenor’s work is the intersection of entertainment and politics, especially through late-night television and online platforms.
She has written about late-night hosts skewering a “proof-of-life” photo of Mitch McConnell, using their jokes to show how comedy programmes treat official political imagery as raw material for critique. In a separate piece, she tracks late-night reactions to a Trump media ban, quoting hosts who cast the move as “positively un-American” and positioning their monologues as part of the broader media conversation around democratic norms. Her reporting on Robin Williams’s daughter Zelda condemning deepfake videos of her father centres on how AI-generated clips misrepresent the late actor, and how a single social media post becomes a rallying point in debates over consent, legacy and misinformation.
Surgenor’s coverage of Neutrogena responding after Hayden Panettiere fans renew calls for a boycott similarly treats brand statements, fan campaigns and discussions of postpartum depression as interconnected elements in a story about corporate accountability and celebrity advocacy. Together, these pieces show her interest in how entertainment platforms, comedians and digital audiences process political events and ethical questions, and how those responses themselves become entertainment news.
Music icons and global contests
Surgenor also covers music legends and major televised competitions, with an emphasis on how institutional decisions and personal tributes shape the way audiences remember artists.
Her piece on Dolly Parton’s sister describing how the singer was still thinking of others while battling cancer focuses on Stella Parton’s emotional post and the details it offers about Dolly’s philanthropy near the end of her life. That story sits alongside a package of obituary and reaction coverage, and Surgenor’s contribution highlights the thread between Parton’s public generosity and private gestures, reinforcing the star’s image as an artist defined by care for others.
In a different register, she has reported that Canada will enter the 2027 Eurovision Song Contest, explaining the significance of CBC/Radio-Canada becoming a full member of the European Broadcasting Union and outlining what participation means for future performers and viewers. A follow-up piece on the contest portal opening details deadlines, the submission process and how a shortlist of finalists will be determined, making a bureaucratic step legible to aspiring artists and fans who follow Eurovision closely.
Across these music stories, Surgenor links institutional moves and family remembrances to the emotional investments of audiences, treating both logistics and legacy as key parts of the entertainment beat.
Nostalgia, reboots and viewing habits
Surgenor’s recent work frequently returns to questions of how audiences watch - and rewatch - film and television, and what that says about nostalgia and platform strategy.
In her coverage of a Darkwing Duck reboot with Mark Hamill and Seth Rogen, she combines casting news and platform details with a reminder that the original series premiered 35 years ago, framing the project as part of a wider wave of animated revivals. Her story on a Matthew Perry documentary coming to Netflix in October focuses on release timing and the choice of subject, positioning the film within ongoing efforts to revisit and reinterpret the legacy of the star of Friends.
She extends this interest in how audiences experience content in a piece asking whether it really matters how viewers watch Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, laying out the specifics of Imax 70-mm projection, the limited number of theatres offering that format, and the arguments of film-lovers on both sides of the debate. These articles show Surgenor engaging with both technical details and fan sentiment, whether that means explaining aspect ratios and film stock or parsing why certain reboots and documentaries resonate now. Combined with her broader entertainment output, they underline a focus on the viewing experience itself, not just the fact that a title exists.
Across her entertainment work for the CBC, Surgenor consistently uses concise, news-driven stories to connect individual moments - a marriage announcement, a boycott, a trailer drop or a festival decision - to broader shifts in how audiences consume and talk about culture. Her reporting leverages experience in daily news production, favouring clear timelines, straightforward language and careful selection of quotes, while leaving room for readers to see how fan communities, performers and institutions shape one another.
4 more entertainment journalists.
Ama Sechere
Ama Sechere is an entertainment publicist at Bell Media who maps Crave’s streaming slate across Crave, HBO, Starz, and related specialty channels. Her main work is the recurring Crave Streaming Overview series, published monthly from at least December 2021 through July 2026 and in weekly editions. These releases track feature films, returning series, premieres, finales, special events, and new acquisitions by date, format, and platform. She also handles campaign-style announcements for priority titles, including the short-form original comedy series MY DEAD MOM. Sechere focuses on streaming and television publicity, with more than a decade of experience in national and multi-platform campaigns. She reports through structured schedules, concise loglines, highlight notes, premiere details, and clear cross-brand labels. Her work supports media planning rather than criticism or review.
Amaris Encinas
Amaris Encinas tracks how viral culture, celebrity news and brand-driven moments move across platforms and into everyday life for USA TODAY’s national trending desk. She covers celebrities, athletes, entertainment headlines, consumer news, viral food culture, internet trends, nostalgia and technology. Her work includes stories on Simone Biles, Jimmy Kimmel, Dolly Parton, Sophie Cunningham, Taco Bell’s Pink Baja Blast, viral food hacks, Cartoon Network Flash games and Apple launches. She also reports on recalls, retail policy, public safety and representation, including a profile of Revista Étnica’s founder. Encinas writes quick-turn, news-driven pieces that explain why incidents, products and trends are capturing attention. She connects online activity to real-world effects and grounds stories in clear facts, timelines and stakes. Before USA TODAY, she covered breaking news, arts and life for regional outlets.
Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson covers the modern wrestling business through interview-led news and detailed event reports across major promotions. He writes for Fightful and POST Wrestling, focusing on clear, news-first stories built from wrestler quotations, promotional announcements and match results. Since 2017, his beat has spanned WWE, AEW, NJPW, MLW and other companies, documenting plans, deals and career moves through his own interviews and conversations. He files chronological recaps from major WWE cards and weekly shows, tracking match outcomes, title changes, segments and announced bouts with wrestling-specific detail. His cross-promotion coverage and appearances discussing events like AEW All In add context on how talent, stories and major cards move between companies. Beyond articles, he runs the “Andrew Thompson Interviews” video series and appears as a podcaster, keeping the emphasis on direct questions, sourced quotes and concrete developments.
Angelina Mazza
Angelina Mazza is a romance scholar and cultural critic who treats love stories, celebrity narratives, and pop entertainment as serious subjects, tracing how they shape contemporary culture. She writes for outlets including Vulture, Slate, Literary Hub, Salon, and other magazines and journals. At Vulture she covers romance fiction and celebrity stories, using list-driven guides and essays to analyze genre tropes, fandoms, and how romance moves from niche communities into mainstream culture. Her work extends to television, music, poetry, internet culture, and the history of music television, examining programming choices, character types, and images as texts that encode identity, desire, gender, and audience. She also writes about digital culture and campus television comedies, and works as a fact-checker, bringing precise detail and careful sourcing to her reported and critical pieces.