Lisa LaFlamme hosted Canada’s most-watched national news program. CTV National News averaged over a million viewers at 11pm, more than double CBC National. In April, the 58-year-old journalist won the Canadian Screen Award for the country’s best female presenter for the second year in a row.
Posted at 7:30 p.m
And yet, two months later, Lisa LaFlamme was summarily fired from CTV after 35 years of service, including more than a decade as the newsroom headliner. He still had almost two years of contract.
Lloyd Robertson, Lisa LaFlamme’s predecessor, was the presenter of CTV until he was 77. Peter Mansbridge, the star CBC presenter, read the news until he was 69. Two weights, two measures? It really seems yes.
“It’s not my choice,” said the journalist, still in shock — she’s been incommunicado since June — in a two-minute video posted to Twitter earlier this week. This is a “business decision” based on “changing viewing habits,” CTV owner Bell Media said in a statement.
Twenty minutes later, Bell announced that his new presenter would be Omar Sachedina, a McGill University graduate 20 years younger than Lisa LaFlamme. How do you say “not chic” in English? Neither for one nor for the other, for the rest.
Various media searches in English Canada revealed this week that interference with journalistic content and a personality conflict are said to have been the reason for Lisa LaFlamme’s dismissal. Michael Melling, CTV News’ new vice president, who was appointed last January, does not appear to accept women taking a stand against him, according to several CTV employees, who asked not to be identified.
Lisa LaFlamme reportedly wanted more money to be invested in reporting on the war in Ukraine to keep journalists safe. She would have also insisted that a producer and collaborator who was on the verge of losing her job stayed by her side.
Above all, Bell Media’s “business decision” appears, according to several observers, to have been a convenient excuse to ditch an influential employee who questioned the authority of a new executive. To hire a less experienced journalist in his place at a lower salary.
What is particularly striking about this controversial decision is the shameless and unrestrained ageism and sexism on which it is based. Investigative reporter Robyn Doolittle of The Globe and Mail revealed Thursday that upon taking office, Michael Melling asked who authorized Lisa LaFlamme to stop dying her hair during the pandemic. Personally. At a board meeting. Five months later he announced his dismissal to his antenna boss.
It seems unthinkable in 2022, cartoonish sexism, almost burlesque, worthy of a kids-in-the-hall sketch, but it’s true nonetheless. That wasn’t even his only comment about his presenter’s natural hair color, according to The Globe and Mail. Needless to say, you would never make such a remark about a man. I’ve been on TV and have had gray hair (increasingly) for 15 years and I can vouch for that.
Two or three conservative columnists tried in vain to sweep allegations of sexism under the rug, suggesting that Lisa LaFlamme may have been a victim of waking culture (we know the refrain), almost every reporter and columnist in Canada-English described her this week as a discerning journalist who is highly respected and valued by her peers.
If Bell Media could have accused him of something concrete and damning, we would have known about it, even indirectly. That’s how quick a leak has come when it comes to exonerating a company embroiled in a PR fiasco…
There is currently nothing that allows us to draw a parallel between the firing of Lisa LaFlamme and Radio-Canada’s suspension of Pascale Nadeau. Several of Pascale Nadeau’s ex-colleagues – who is now suing Radio-Canada – have denounced what they say is an unhealthy climate on the set of Téléjournal, which she hosted. Nothing of the sort has been accused of CTV’s Lisa LaFlamme or emerges from all the coverage of her controversial firing.
People will say I’m naïve, but I dare hope that such a layoff would be harder to imagine in Quebec today. We hope that our broadcasters have learned from their mistakes.
In 1984, at the age of 40, Radio Canada journalist Louise Arcand was told by her bosses that they, too, wanted to “rejuvenate” the news program she hosted. She was replaced by a 28-year-old colleague. The Quebec Supreme Court and the Canadian Human Rights Commission acknowledged that she had been the victim of discrimination. She died of cancer in 1992.
Other journalists thereafter seemed to bear the brunt of some form of discrimination. We think of Francine Bastien, Suzanne Laberge, Madeleine Poulin or Michèle Viroly. The fact remains that today several experienced journalists moderate news programs or information programs. Nobody, if I’m not mistaken, has gray hair…
To think that a news program is likely to be more popular on traditional television because it is hosted by a 38-year-old man rather than a 58-year-old woman strikes me not only as ageism and sexism, but also magical thinking.
This despicable and unfortunate “business decision” is likely to turn against Bell Media. What is most troubling is that a company of this size does not act so cavalierly, regardless of experience and quality journalism. Anyone who remembers the Broadcast News film or has watched The Morning Show won’t be surprised.
What is most disturbing is to see that in 2022 it is still so easy to get rid of a woman under the pretense that she is not docile enough, that she has a face or hair that reflects to her true age, simply because she does is a woman.