Nonfiction

Lisa LaFlamme Deserves Better Than This

CTV’s outrageous decision reveals that misogyny and ageism is alive and well in Canadian Broadcasting

Lisa LaFlamme has been a household name in Canada for decades and is known globally for her journalistic integrity. After a 35-year career with CTV, LaFlamme was unceremoniously fired from her position as Chief Anchor and Senior Editor of the network’s evening news show, CTV National News with Lisa LaFlamme, which has held since 2011. It is one of the country’s most-watched newscasts.

As Chief Anchor for CTV National News, LaFlamme won Best National News Anchor at the Canadian Screen Awards five times, including in 2021 and 2022. In 2019, she was named an officer of the Order of Canada for her outstanding contributions to journalism and her support of human rights.

The Canadian public was stunned to learn via a Twitter video that LaFlamme had been let go from the network, without so much as a public sendoff. The question on everybody’s mind has been, “Why was Lisa fired?” The answers reveal a horrifying truth about the culture of journalism, even in Canada. In the words of James Joyce’s Molly Bloom, a performer struggling to find work as a woman in her thirties: “as for being a woman as soon as youre old they might as well throw you out in the bottom of the ashpit.”

“Why was Lisa fired?”

Michael Melling, the new Vice-President of CTV News, made the decision to let LaFlamme go, despite still having two years on her current contract. The decision has been met with outrage across the country, and for good reason.

According to a senior CTV official, shortly after Melling became head of CTV News, he raised questions about host Lisa LaFlamme’s hair: “who approved the decision to let Lisa’s hair go grey?” he apparently asked. LaFlamme made headlines in 2020 when she decided to stop dyeing her hair, getting praise from women across the country who were excited to see a woman age gracefully in an industry that so often features young, blonde hosts that are seen as interchangeable and replaceable from one year to the next.

In the Twitter video where she announces her departure from the network, LaFlamme said that she was ‘blindsided’ by the executives’ decision to terminate her contract:

“I was blindsided and I’m still shocked and saddened by Bell Media’s decision,” she says. “At 58, I still thought I’d have a lot more time to tell more of the stories that impact our daily lives.”

CTV is owned by Bell Media, the monopoly which controls Canada’s phone and cable service. Wendy Freeman, a champion of women’s rights, left as Vice President of CTV News in December 2021 and was replaced by Melling in January 2022. Freeman was herself a journalist, and there was mutual respect between she and LaFlamme even when they disagreed.

A Globe and Mail article reveals that the decision to fire LaFlamme may have been in part due to a breakdown in that relationship when Melling took over the position. Two incidents cited by the article where LaFlamme and Melling butted heads include coverage of the invasion of Ukraine and the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Concerned with the safety of the crew while in Ukraine, LaFlamme apparently advocated for CTV to book hotel rooms in Poland in case they needed to retreat quickly. Melling objected to the cost of booking the rooms, as well as to sending a team to cover the Jubilee, opting to significantly downsize the Canadian coverage of the event to save money.

Clashes between journalists and executives is not uncommon, but Melling seems to have tried to assert his new authority by pushing back against very reasonable requests for safety measures and decent coverage of our Monarch (Queen Elizabeth II is also the Queen of Canada). Many people have been calling Melling’s actions sexist, and for good reason. Multiple sources have reported inappropriate comments, such as the question regarding LaFlamme’s hair, which she grew out in lockdown.

A CTV source described as “high-level” reported to Canadaland that Melling is “a company man” who “does not stand up for the journalists… He doesn’t like it when women push back and he brags about how he’s destroyed careers of anyone who dares push back.” According to Canadaland,

“The source believes that Melling has consistently demonstrated a lack of respect for women in senior roles in the newsroom and that he fired LaFlamme in order to seize control of CTV News and to send a message.”

The message was that he is more powerful than “the most powerful woman at CTV News,” and that anyone was liable to be ousted if they spoke against him.

Connie Thiessen similarly told CBC News that LaFlamme’s termination signals that a woman’s broadcast career only has a lifespan of 20 to 30 years (if she’s lucky). In spite of her experience, fame, mass appeal, brand recognition, and other attributes, Lisa LaFlamme was possibly fired for speaking up for her colleagues… while having gray hair.

“Certainly we are losing a generation of wisdom and knowledge and lived experience,” Thiessen says. In an editorial for Broadcast Dialogue, a trade publication about Canadian broadcast media, she wrote: “What is new is the near certainty now that most journalists and other media workers will be packaged out prematurely, cutting short careers and in the process the earned wisdom, experience and knowledge that have historically been the guiding editorial lights in newsrooms everywhere.”

Bell Media has released a statement saying that executives have made the “business decision” to move CTV National News in a “different direction” by letting LaFlamme go. The company revealed that Omar Sachedina will replace her at the news desk on 5 September. The public response has been outrage alongside accusations of sexism and ageism.

Lisa LaFlamme dared to go grey at a time when Canadians were feeling most vulnerable — at the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. Without a team of stylists at her side, LaFlamme made the decision to stop touching up her own roots before every broadcast from her home.

She made Canadian women feel proud to show their grey. Her beauty and dignity as a woman over 50 inspired a wave of women wanting ‘the LaFlamme look’ when salons opened back up. Her unexpected, unceremonious departure from the network has been called a combination of ageism and sexism by many news outlets in the days since the announcement.

Let’s compare LaFlamme’s age to that of another legendary national news anchor for CTV, Lloyd Robertson. Robertson retired from CTV National News at age 77 after a 44-year career with the company, to fanfare and celebration. LaFlamme is decades away from her male peers’ retirement ages and was quietly dropped at only 58. CTV employees learned of her departure at the same time as the public, from a Twitter video recorded at her cabin.

CTV recently came under fire when sued by former eTalk host Danielle Graham, who claims there is a history of sexism at CTV. Graham worked for CTV for 15 years and was ‘laid off’ in March after speaking up against the “constant, persistent and systemic gender discrimination which she received as a woman.” She claims to have been paid less than her co-stars, passed over for promotions, penalized for getting pregnant, and then denied reasonable accommodations while expecting.

Danielle Graham was let go just one day before her lawyer was supposed to meet with the CTV Vice President to discuss gender discrimination. Graham’s lawyer claims in the suit that Graham “was fired specifically to preempt that meeting. She had complained three times in the previous year alone, expressing concerns of blatant gender discrimination against women at Bell, discrimination endemic at CTV.” She is suing for wrongful termination.

There is a history of sexism at CTV News.

Misogyny and ageism in broadcasting is not a new phenomenon, though Canadians often like to think of themselves as rising above their neighbours to the south when it comes to discrimination. It’s America that’s sexist, racist, and homophobic — not Canada! people protest. But it isn’t just the Republicans, or the USA more broadly. Fox News’s parade of identical blonde women is an extreme example of a global, industry-wide problem. It is just as likely to happen at CTV and CBC than Fox and CNN.

LaFlamme’s departure signals that Canadian broadcasting does not have the integrity it once did. Comments from executives about her grey hair are a drop in the bucket. If someone as “powerful” as LaFlamme, with 35+ years of experience, can just be dropped and replaced with a man or younger woman, what hope is there for young women entering the industry? They may get a couple of years on the screen before they, too, are tossed aside. A woman over fifty reporting the news? Forget it!

Women aren’t allowed to age when they’re on your television screen. Whether in Hollywood or Toronto, the pressure to look young affects women more than men. Men aren’t expected to wear makeup or look perfect. Men in the highest positions of politics can look like they just rolled out of bed (here’s looking at you, Boris Johnson!) but a woman can’t have a hair out of place, or else she’s a slob who has ‘let herself go.’

When men gain weight after marriage, they have a desirable ‘dad bod.’

When women gain weight because they’ve just gestated a human being and don’t bounce back in six weeks, they’ve ‘let themselves go.’

When men go grey, they’re ‘silver foxes.’

When women go grey, they ‘let themselves go.’

Lisa LaFlamme didn’t ‘let herself go.’ CTV News let her go. Michael Melling let her go. LaFlamme still looks amazing. Her voice is still perfect for news — clear, articulate and instantly recognizable. She handled this disgraceful treatment with grace and aplomb.

LaFlamme is a beloved Canadian figure known for her professionalism and journalistic integrity, her passion for human rights issues and work with international humanitarian organizations, as well as her unforgettable voice, poise, and style. I can’t imagine Canadian news without her. My childhood is narrated by Lisa LaFlamme reading the news in the background of family dinners.

Lisa LaFlamme deserves so much better than this. Whether she was fired because of sexism, ageism, a new exec looking to make a mark, a clash of egos, ‘just’ a company hellbent on cost-cutting (capitalism doesn’t care about people) or some combination, the way she was treated is unacceptable.

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