Lisa LaFlamme, CTV News, and Bad Executive Decisions

There will be no bittersweet on-air goodbye for (now former) CTV countrywide news anchor Lisa LaFlamme, no ceremonial passing of the baton to the next generation, no broadcast retrospectives lionizing a journalist with a storied and award-successful profession. As LaFlamme announced yesterday, CTV’s parent firm, Bell Media, has resolved to unilaterally conclusion her deal. (See also the CBC’s reporting of the tale in this article.)

While LaFlamme herself doesn’t make this declare, there was of course instant speculation that the network’s conclusion has a thing to do with the simple fact that LaFlamme is a lady of a particular age. LaFlamme is 58, which by Television specifications is not exactly younger — other than when you look at it to the age at which preferred gentlemen who proceeded her have still left their respective anchor’s chairs: take into account Peter Mansbridge (who was 69), and Lloyd Robertson (who was 77).

But an even far more sinister principle is now afoot: alternatively than mere, shallow misogyny, evidence has arisen of not just sexism, but sexism conjoined with company interference in newscasting. Two evils for the value of just one! LaFlamme was fired, states journalist Jesse Brown, “because she pushed back again in opposition to one particular Bell Media govt.” Brown studies insiders as professing that Michael Melling, vice president of news at Bell Media, has bumped heads with LaFlamme a amount of periods, and has a heritage of interfering with information protection. Brown additional reviews that “Melling has continuously shown a absence of regard for gals in senior roles in the newsroom.”

Unnecessary to say, even if a personal grudge additionally sexism reveal what’s going on, right here, it continue to will appear to be to most as a “foolish decision,” a person sure to trigger the company complications. Now, I make it a policy not to problem the enterprise savvy of knowledgeable executives in industries I never know very well. And I advise my learners not to leap to the conclusion that “that was a dumb decision” just mainly because it’s one they never recognize. But continue to, in 2022, it’s challenging to visualize that the company (or Melling additional specially) did not see that there would be blowback in this circumstance. It is a single factor to have disagreements, but it’s an additional to unceremoniously dump a beloved and award-profitable female anchor. And it is weird that a senior executive at a information business would assume that the truth would not arrive out, provided that, after all, he’s surrounded by men and women whose task, and personal motivation, is to report the news.

And it’s hard not to suspect that this a a lot less than satisfied transition for LaFlamme’s replacement, Omar Sachedina. Of program, I’m absolutely sure he’s content to get the career. But when Bell Media’s push release offers Sachedina expressing graceful things about LaFlamme, certainly he didn’t want to think the anchor chair amidst widespread criticism of the changeover. He’s taking on the function under a shadow. Maybe the prize is well worth the value, but it’s also tough not to picture that Sachedina had (or now has) some pull, some skill to influence that manner of the transition. I’m not declaring (as some surely will) that — as an insider who is familiar with the true tale — he really should have declined the work as unwell-gotten gains. But at the incredibly the very least, it looks reasonable to argue that he must have applied his influence to form the transition. And if the now-senior anchor does not have that sort of influence, we must be concerned certainly about the independence of that function, and of that newsroom.

A remaining, linked take note about authority and governance in advanced companies. In any reasonably effectively-ruled corporation, the final decision to axe a important, community-going through expertise like LaFlamme would have to have indicator-off — or at minimum tacit acceptance — from much more than one particular senior government. This indicates that a person of two points is accurate. Possibly Bell Media is not that variety of properly-ruled group, or a huge selection of folks ended up included in, and culpable of, unceremoniously dumping an award-winning journalist. Which is even worse?