Lisa LaFlamme, CTV News, and Bad Executive Decisions

There will be no bittersweet on-air goodbye for (now former) CTV national information anchor Lisa LaFlamme, no ceremonial passing of the baton to the next technology, no broadcast retrospectives lionizing a journalist with a storied and award-successful vocation. As LaFlamme declared yesterday, CTV’s parent corporation, Bell Media, has made a decision to unilaterally end her agreement. (See also the CBC’s reporting of the tale below.)

Though LaFlamme herself doesn’t make this assert, there was of class speedy speculation that the network’s final decision has a thing to do with the point that LaFlamme is a girl of a particular age. LaFlamme is 58, which by Television benchmarks is not just youthful — besides when you look at it to the age at which well-known adult males who proceeded her have left their respective anchor’s chairs: take into consideration Peter Mansbridge (who was 69), and Lloyd Robertson (who was 77).

But an even additional sinister principle is now afoot: alternatively than mere, shallow misogyny, evidence has arisen of not just sexism, but sexism conjoined with corporate interference in newscasting. Two evils for the price tag of a person! LaFlamme was fired, claims journalist Jesse Brown, “because she pushed back again in opposition to 1 Bell Media govt.” Brown reports insiders as saying that Michael Melling, vice president of information at Bell Media, has bumped heads with LaFlamme a amount of times, and has a history of interfering with information coverage. Brown additional reviews that “Melling has constantly demonstrated a absence of regard for gals in senior roles in the newsroom.”

Pointless to say, even if a private grudge plus sexism explain what’s heading on, listed here, it nonetheless will appear to be to most as a “foolish final decision,” a single sure to lead to the firm complications. Now, I make it a coverage not to problem the organization savvy of expert executives in industries I never know very well. And I suggest my students not to leap to the conclusion that “that was a dumb decision” just due to the fact it is just one they really do not realize. But nevertheless, in 2022, it is tough to envision that the firm (or Melling more precisely) didn’t see that there would be blowback in this situation. It is one particular matter to have disagreements, but it’s a different to unceremoniously dump a beloved and award-successful lady anchor. And it’s bizarre that a senior govt at a information organization would assume that the truth of the matter would not arrive out, supplied that, following all, he’s surrounded by folks whose occupation, and particular commitment, is to report the information.

And it’s hard not to suspect that this a a lot less than joyful transition for LaFlamme’s substitution, Omar Sachedina. Of class, I’m confident he’s satisfied to get the task. But whilst Bell Media’s press launch quotations Sachedina indicating sleek things about LaFlamme, definitely he didn’t want to presume the anchor chair amidst common criticism of the changeover. He’s getting on the part beneath a shadow. Maybe the prize is well worth the rate, but it’s also really hard not to consider that Sachedina had (or now has) some pull, some potential to influence that way of the changeover. I’m not saying (as some certainly will) that — as an insider who knows the genuine tale — he really should have declined the job as sick-gotten gains. But at the extremely the very least, it appears to be honest to argue that he should really have employed his impact to form the changeover. And if the now-senior anchor doesn’t have that kind of influence, we ought to be apprehensive in truth about the independence of that function, and of that newsroom.

A closing, similar observe about authority and governance in advanced businesses. In any fairly very well-ruled group, the selection to axe a key, community-facing expertise like LaFlamme would require sign-off — or at the very least tacit approval — from much more than a single senior govt. This indicates that one of two issues is legitimate. Either Bell Media is not that type of very well-governed firm, or a substantial selection of individuals ended up included in, and culpable of, unceremoniously dumping an award-profitable journalist. Which is even worse?