Lisa LaFlamme, CTV News, and Bad Executive Decisions

Previous CTV countrywide anchor
Lisa LaFlamme

There will be no bittersweet on-air goodbye for (now previous) CTV countrywide information anchor Lisa LaFlamme, no ceremonial passing of the baton to the up coming generation, no broadcast retrospectives lionizing a journalist with a storied and award-winning career. As LaFlamme declared yesterday, CTV’s guardian corporation, Bell Media, has decided to unilaterally conclude her deal. (See also the CBC’s reporting of the tale right here.)

When LaFlamme herself does not make this declare, there was of training course quick speculation that the network’s selection has a little something to do with the actuality that LaFlamme is a woman of a specified age. LaFlamme is 58, which by Tv benchmarks is not precisely younger — except when you compare it to the age at which well-known adult men who proceeded her have left their respective anchor’s chairs: consider Peter Mansbridge (who was 69), and Lloyd Robertson (who was 77).

But an even more sinister idea is now afoot: fairly than mere, shallow misogyny, proof has arisen of not just sexism, but sexism conjoined with corporate interference in newscasting. Two evils for the price of one! LaFlamme was fired, suggests journalist Jesse Brown, “because she pushed back again from 1 Bell Media govt.” Brown reviews insiders as saying that Michael Melling, vice president of news at Bell Media, has bumped heads with LaFlamme a range of moments, and has a record of interfering with news coverage. Brown more stories that “Melling has continually demonstrated a absence of regard for girls in senior roles in the newsroom.”

Pointless to say, even if a personalized grudge in addition sexism describe what is going on, in this article, it however will appear to be to most as a “foolish choice,” 1 guaranteed to induce the organization problems. Now, I make it a plan not to problem the small business savvy of expert executives in industries I never know perfectly. And I suggest my college students not to leap to the summary that “that was a dumb decision” just since it’s a single they never realize. But continue to, in 2022, it’s challenging to consider that the organization (or Melling extra specially) didn’t see that there would be blowback in this situation. It is one point to have disagreements, but it is another to unceremoniously dump a beloved and award-profitable female anchor. And it is bizarre that a senior executive at a information corporation would feel that the fact would not arrive out, offered that, right after all, he’s surrounded by folks whose occupation, and own dedication, is to report the news.

And it is challenging not to suspect that this a considerably less than delighted changeover for LaFlamme’s substitution, Omar Sachedina. Of course, I’m confident he’s happy to get the job. But while Bell Media’s press release prices Sachedina indicating graceful items about LaFlamme, surely he did not want to think the anchor chair amidst common criticism of the transition. He’s having on the job beneath a shadow. Potentially the prize is really worth the price, but it’s also challenging not to visualize that Sachedina had (or now has) some pull, some means to influence that manner of the transition. I’m not indicating (as some absolutely will) that — as an insider who understands the serious story — he ought to have declined the career as ill-gotten gains. But at the quite least, it seems fair to argue that he ought to have utilized his influence to condition the transition. And if the now-senior anchor doesn’t have that kind of impact, we ought to be nervous in truth about the independence of that part, and of that newsroom.

A closing, relevant be aware about authority and governance in complicated organizations. In any moderately properly-ruled group, the decision to axe a major, community-struggling with expertise like LaFlamme would have to have signal-off — or at minimum tacit acceptance — from more than one particular senior executive. This indicates that just one of two factors is real. Either Bell Media isn’t that kind of effectively-ruled corporation, or a huge variety of individuals have been concerned in, and culpable of, unceremoniously dumping an award-profitable journalist. Which is even worse?

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