Lisa LaFlamme hosted Canada’s most watched national newscast. CTV National News attracted more than one million viewers on average at 11 p.m., more than double the National from the CBC. In April, for the second year in a row, the 58-year-old journalist won the Canadian Screen award for the best female anchor in the country.
Posted at 7:30 p.m.
And yet, two months later, Lisa LaFlamme was let go by CTV, without further ado, after 35 years of service, including more than a decade as the headliner of its newsroom. While he had almost two years left on his contract.
Lloyd Robertson, Lisa LaFlamme’s predecessor, was CTV’s anchor until age 77. Peter Mansbridge, the star CBC presenter, read the news until he was 69. Two weights, two measures ? It really seems like yes.
“It’s not my choice,” said the journalist, still in shock – she had been kept incommunicado since June – in a two-minute video, posted on Twitter earlier this week. This is a “business decision” based on “changing viewer habits,” Bell Media, owner of CTV, said in a statement.
Twenty minutes later, Bell announced that its new anchor would be Omar Sachedina, a graduate of McGill University, 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 investigations in English Canada revealed this week that interference in journalistic content as well as a conflict of personalities in particular would be at the origin of the dismissal of Lisa LaFlamme. Michael Melling, the new vice-president of CTV News, appointed last January, does not seem to accept that women stand up to him, according to several CTV employees who requested anonymity.
Lisa LaFlamme reportedly wanted more money to be invested in coverage of the war in Ukraine, to ensure the safety of journalists. She would also have insisted that a producer and associate, who was about to lose her job, stay by her side.
Bell Media’s “business decision”, according to several observers, seems above all to have been a convenient pretext to get rid of an influential employee who challenged the authority of a new executive. In order to hire a less experienced journalist in his place at a lower salary.
What is obvious in this controversial decision is above all the shameless and uninhibited ageism and sexism that underlies it. Investigative reporter Robyn Doolittle of the Globe and Mail revealed Thursday that Michael Melling asked, upon taking office, who authorized Lisa LaFlamme to stop dyeing her hair during the pandemic. In person. In a meeting of executives. Five months later, he announced his dismissal to his head of antenna.
It seems inconceivable in 2022, with a caricatural sexism, almost burlesque, worthy of a sketch of Kids in the Hall, but it is nevertheless true. That wasn’t even his only comment about his anchorwoman’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 (increasingly) gray hair for 15 years, and I can vouch for that.
A couple of conservative columnists tried to sweep accusations of sexism under the rug, suggesting that Lisa LaFlamme was possibly a victim of culture. woke (we know the catchphrase), almost all the reporters and columnists in English Canada described her this week as a demanding journalist, highly respected and appreciated by her colleagues.
If Bell Media had had something concrete and damning to reproach him for, we would have known about it, even indirectly. A leak has come so quickly when it comes to clearing a company entangled in a public relations fiasco…
There is nothing that currently allows us to draw a parallel between the dismissal of Lisa LaFlamme and the suspension by Radio-Canada of Pascale Nadeau. Several ex-colleagues of Pascale Nadeau — who is now suing Radio-Canada — have denounced what they describe as an unhealthy climate reigning on the set of Newscast which she hosted. Nothing like that has been alleged against Lisa LaFlamme by CTV or emerges from all of the reporting devoted to her controversial dismissal.
People will say that I am naive, but I dare to hope that today in Quebec, such a dismissal would be more difficult to envisage. Our broadcasters, we hope, have learned from their mistakes.
In 1984, at age 40, Radio-Canada journalist Louise Arcand was informed by her bosses that they, too, wanted to “rejuvenate” the news bulletin she hosted. She was replaced by a 28-year-old colleague. The Superior Court of Quebec and the Canadian Human Rights Commission acknowledged that she had been the victim of discrimination. She died of cancer in 1992.
Other journalists seemed to bear the brunt of some form of discrimination afterwards. We think of Francine Bastien, Suzanne Laberge, Madeleine Poulin or Michèle Viroly. The fact remains that today, several experienced journalists host news bulletins or information programs. None, unless I am mistaken, however, has gray hair…
To believe that a newscast on traditional television is likely to be more popular because it is hosted by a 38-year-old man rather than a 58-year-old woman strikes me as not just ageism and sexism, but also magical thinking.
This “business decision” as despicable as it is unfortunate is likely to turn against Bell Media. The most disturbing thing is not to see a company of this size acting so cavalierly, with so little regard for experience and quality journalism. Anyone who remembers the movie Broadcast News or followed the series The Morning Show won’t be surprised.
The most worrying thing is to see that in 2022, it is still so easy to get rid of a woman on the pretext that she is not docile enough, that she has a face or hair that reflects too her real age, simply because she is a woman.