Alumni Spotlight: Domenic Fazioli

Fazioli said his interest in media was first sparked in Cegep when he started contributing cartoons to the campus newspaper, The Bugle.

“The editor encouraged me to submit some drawings,” he recalled. “That’s where I developed an interest.”

Fazioli, enrolled in Creative Arts, had a talent for drawing and looked up to cartoonists like Aislin, the longtime editorial cartoonist at the Montreal Gazette.

Fazioli looks back on his Cegep days as a “more innocent time.”

“It was all about dreaming big. The whole world was ahead of me,” he added. “Now that I look back, it was probably the best time of my life.”

After graduation, Fazioli attended Ryerson University in Toronto and completed a Bachelor of Applied Arts (Radio and Television Arts).

During his undergraduate studies, Fazioli completed internships and worked with Rogers TV, CBC and Sportsnet to gain hands on experience.

“I didn’t have a lot of free time but it paid off,” he said. “All the hard work, all the giving up my weekends to be an observer on a TV production, it opened doors for me.”

In 1995, Fazioli moved back to Montreal and found work at the Weather Network producing a morning show.
From 2001 to 2015, Fazioli worked for Global as a news reporter before taking on a role at City TV as a reporter and producer.

During this time, Fazioli witnessed firsthand how newsrooms were shrinking due to funding cuts. He currently works freelance and manages a Facebook page he created to share community news called ‘East End Montreal’ which has close to 30,000 followers.

Fazioli said that as the English-language media industry goes through a “transformation phase,” he became an independent digital reporter to keep his skills sharp.

While Fazioli is normally reporting on the news, he made headlines several years ago for opening up about his decision to donate his kidney to help save his father’s life.

Fazioli participated in a living donor paired exchange in which he donated a kidney to a stranger in exchange for someone else donating a kidney to his father.

“It was the most tremendous thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he said.

His act of kindness helped extend his father’s life by eight years and helped another family find a matching donor: “Because of that, he got to see my son being born, he got to see my daughter being born.”

“I don’t regret it for one second,” he said. “If I could donate another kidney and save another life, I would.”

Fazioli’s advice for current students and recent grads: “Do your homework, but always follow you passion. Don’t make a decision blindly. Do your homework first, but just do what you really wanna do. I didn’t pick a very easy industry. I really went with my gut. It’s what I wanted to do and I’m glad my family supported me. I took a risk and it worked out.”