Mitchell was named the best environmental reporter in the world in 2000 by the World Conservation Union and the Reuters Foundation. Based in Switzerland, the World Conservation Union is the world’s largest environmental organization. For two consecutive years (2000 and 2001) the organization cited Mitchell’s work as the best environmental reporting in North America and Oceania. This international acclaim led to a study term at Oxford University where Mitchell wrote a thesis on Darwin and the modern ecological crises. She is currently on leave from The Globe and Mail to complete a book on the same subject.
Mitchell grew up in Regina and studied at the University of Regina before transferring to the University of Toronto where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and classical and medieval Latin literature in 1982. In 1987, she earned a Bachelor of Applied Arts degree in Journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto. Mitchell worked for three years as a business journalist at The Financial Post, and in 1990 she joined the Globe and Mail. Four years later she set up the Globe’s Calgary news bureau and served as bureau chief. She returned to Toronto in 2000 to become the newspaper’s first earth sciences reporter.
The Minifie Lecture is given each year by a senior Canadian journalist. The lecture is named for the late James M. Minifie, a respected CBC television journalist who donated his substantial library to the University of Regina. Past Minifie Lecturers include Knowlton Nash, Joe Schlesinger, Helen Hutchinson, Ann Medina, Patrick Watson, Pamela Wallin, June Callwood, Arthur Kent, Peter Mansbridge, Lloyd Robertson, Rex Murphy, Wendy Mesley and Haroon Siddiqui.