Almost eight months after being fired from CTV National News, famed host Lisa LaFlamme gave CBC News her first TV interview since the events on Wednesday. She says she wants to move on and now invest in causes that are dear to her.
“I had 35 memorable years and I loved them. And there are new things to like now. I’ll be fine, I’m fine. […] I really want to focus on the future. I’m really excited to see what’s to come,” she told the show. The Nationalthe newscast of the English public network.
Since her dismissal, Lisa LaFlamme has continued her job, notably covering the death of Queen Elizabeth II as a special correspondent for CityNews last September.
For the future, she intends to focus on issues that are close to her heart. She gives the example of her recent involvement with Journalists for Human Rights, a Canadian organization that campaigns for better coverage of human rights issues. “Long before the end of my contract, the rights of women, their challenges, from the youngest to the oldest, those of indigenous people, black people or people of color have always been things that I have been interested in,” she said. underline.
Back to the controversy
Last summer, the dismissal of Lisa LaFlamme, two years before the end of her contract at CTV News — and after 35 years with the company — caused a lot of ink to flow. The 58-year-old presenter herself announced the news in a video on social media, explaining that she was “caught off guard” when Bell Media suddenly terminated her contract.
Viewers, media colleagues and industry experts reacted strongly to the news, criticizing the company for its lack of clarity and the cavalier manner in which it handled the dismissal. Several very quickly raised questions of ageism and sexism in this affair, the host having stopped dyeing her hair to assume her graying hair at the same time.
Bell Media had declared for its part that the termination of the contract of Mme LaFlamme was a “business move”, before replacing her with Omar Sachedina, 39, who was previously the news channel’s national affairs correspondent.
Questioned in various English-speaking Canadian media, ex-colleagues of Lisa LaFlamme had alleged that she would have participated in the establishment of a toxic work climate within the newsroom of CTV News. In the process, Bell Media launched an “independent assessment” of the situation. In December, the company reassigned the channel’s top news boss, Michael Melling, to another job.
In an interview with CBC News, the former host returned to her dismissal, sticking to her first version. “It was an economic decision. I can’t comment more because that’s all I know. […] And legally, there are limits to what I can say,” she said.
On the other hand, she was grateful for all the support shown by the public and the journalistic community in recent months. “As a journalist, both as a reporter and presenter, I have always felt a responsibility towards the viewer. I didn’t know it was mutual. »
But eight months later, she relativizes and puts things in perspective: losing her job is nothing compared to the atrocities she covered during her career. “I think of the soldiers who lost their legs in Afghanistan, or the babies born on tarpaulins after the earthquake in Haiti, she gives as an example. These are sudden changes from which we do not recover. »
Honors
Lisa LaFlamme also briefly returned to the Gordon-Sinclair prize awarded to her in January by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to highlight her exceptional career. The former host said that she submitted her application independently since her former employer did not intend to do so.
“You can take someone’s job away, but you can’t erase their history and all of their work. And in this case, these are the most important stories we covered during the year: the war in Ukraine, the Pope’s visit to the country. […] It was important to me that these stories not be erased, ”insisted Lisa LaFlamme.