Lisa LaFlamme, CTV News, and Bad Executive Decisions

There will be no bittersweet on-air goodbye for (now previous) CTV nationwide information anchor Lisa LaFlamme, no ceremonial passing of the baton to the following era, no broadcast retrospectives lionizing a journalist with a storied and award-winning job. As LaFlamme announced yesterday, CTV’s father or mother business, Bell Media, has decided to unilaterally close her deal. (See also the CBC’s reporting of the tale below.)

Whilst LaFlamme herself does not make this assert, there was of program rapid speculation that the network’s determination has anything to do with the point that LaFlamme is a lady of a particular age. LaFlamme is 58, which by Tv set benchmarks is not exactly young — except when you evaluate it to the age at which well-liked men who proceeded her have still left their respective anchor’s chairs: contemplate Peter Mansbridge (who was 69), and Lloyd Robertson (who was 77).

But an even far more sinister theory is now afoot: rather than mere, shallow misogyny, proof has arisen of not just sexism, but sexism conjoined with corporate interference in newscasting. Two evils for the rate of one! LaFlamme was fired, says journalist Jesse Brown, “because she pushed back again against one particular Bell Media govt.” Brown reviews insiders as proclaiming that Michael Melling, vice president of information at Bell Media, has bumped heads with LaFlamme a range of occasions, and has a background of interfering with news protection. Brown even further reviews that “Melling has continually demonstrated a absence of regard for women in senior roles in the newsroom.”

Pointless to say, even if a personal grudge additionally sexism demonstrate what’s going on, right here, it nonetheless will seem to be to most as a “foolish selection,” one confident to induce the firm head aches. Now, I make it a policy not to query the business savvy of knowledgeable executives in industries I really do not know very well. And I advise my pupils not to leap to the conclusion that “that was a dumb decision” just for the reason that it’s one particular they never recognize. But however, in 2022, it’s difficult to think about that the business (or Melling a lot more especially) did not see that there would be blowback in this scenario. It’s a single matter to have disagreements, but it’s another to unceremoniously dump a beloved and award-profitable girl anchor. And it’s strange that a senior executive at a news group would consider that the real truth would not appear out, offered that, following all, he’s surrounded by folks whose work, and own determination, is to report the news.

And it is tough not to suspect that this a much less than happy transition for LaFlamme’s substitution, Omar Sachedina. Of system, I’m guaranteed he’s joyful to get the task. But whilst Bell Media’s push launch quotations Sachedina indicating graceful things about LaFlamme, certainly he didn’t want to think the anchor chair amidst prevalent criticism of the transition. He’s having on the function beneath a shadow. Maybe the prize is worthy of the rate, but it is also tough not to envision that Sachedina had (or now has) some pull, some capacity to impact that way of the transition. I’m not declaring (as some surely will) that — as an insider who is aware of the true tale — he need to have declined the work as ill-gotten gains. But at the quite least, it seems good to argue that he ought to have utilised his affect to shape the transition. And if the now-senior anchor doesn’t have that kind of influence, we really should be nervous indeed about the independence of that purpose, and of that newsroom.

A ultimate, connected take note about authority and governance in sophisticated corporations. In any moderately very well-ruled corporation, the decision to axe a key, community-experiencing talent like LaFlamme would demand sign-off — or at the very least tacit approval — from more than a person senior government. This suggests that one particular of two things is genuine. Either Bell Media is not that kind of effectively-governed group, or a big quantity of people today had been associated in, and culpable of, unceremoniously dumping an award-winning journalist. Which is even worse?