Anchor’s away Longtime CTV News fixture Lisa LaFlamme’s abrupt firing smacks of ageism and sexism By: Jen Zoratti Posted: 3:30 PM CDT Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/08/2022 (765 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you are a high-profile male news anchor — scratch that, if you are a high-profile white male newscaster — you can work until you are dust. If you don’t die in the chair first, you will be able to enjoy months-long fanfare and warm wishes leading up to your celebrated retirement, which will be well past the age of 65.

And, on a well-promoted final broadcast, you will have the opportunity to sign off, one last time, to the generations of viewers who allowed you into their living rooms every night.

Not so, apparently, if you are a woman, as was laid bare with the unceremonious firing of veteran CTV broadcaster Lisa LaFlamme.

On Monday, LaFlamme, who has been the chief anchor of CTV National News since Lloyd Robertson’s retirement (at age 77) in 2011, posted a video to Twitter. She thought we should hear the news from her: in June, Bell Media made a “business decision” to end her contract, effectively ending her 35-year career with CTV News.

LaFlamme said she was shocked and saddened by the decision. She was also asked to keep quiet about it.

A class act to the end, she spent most of the two-minute clip expressing gratitude to her viewers and reiterating that she has never taken their trust for granted.

“At 58, I still thought I’d have a lot more time to tell more of the stories that impact our daily lives,” she said. “Instead, I leave CTV humbled by the people who put their faith in me to tell their stories.”

LaFlamme’s firing, as well as the fact that she was denied a chance to address her audience and had to record and post her own signoff to Twitter, smacks of both ageism and sexism.

Lisa LaFlamme is a pioneer, a consummate broadcaster and journalist who, by many accounts, displayed the kind of leadership that reverberates throughout not just her newsroom but the industry at large. She brought experience, perspective, integrity and gravitas to her role, and was treated as though she is disposable.

If this is how women in the upper echelons of this industry are treated, my goodness, what hope do any of us have?

This “business decision” reinforces the persistent message that once a woman is over 50, she should don her invisibility cloak and live out the rest of her days in the pasture of irrelevance.

This age group — despite its size and economic power — has long been chronically underrepresented in all forms of media, broadcast journalism included.

“Middle age” is a punchline, an insult, when, in reality, it’s the time in one’s life when people are most acutely themselves, when they have deep wells of professional and life experience to draw from. We lose so much when we don’t have access to those perspectives.

Media is particularly notorious for perpetuating a 30 Under 30 culture; when we see women from this demographic in hyper-visible, powerful roles, it detonates the idea that a woman’s value is bound up in being young.

And look: hair colour absolutely shouldn’t matter, but society has, unfortunately, made it matter. So let’s talk about her hair: in an industry that prizes youth, LaFlamme was a trailblazer on this file, too. She was one of the women who decided to go platinum during the pandemic and continued to wear her natural hair colour on air, something you almost never see. She had the audacity to look her age and she inspired other women to do the same.

But then, no one talks about male anchors’ hair or lack thereof. No one would ever say, as The Canadian Press story about LaFlamme’s firing did, that a man “defied the odds” — yikes, the odds of what? — by being a silver-haired male anchor on the country’s most-watched national newscast.

LaFlamme deserved so much better. So did her successor, 39-year-old Omar Sachedina, who was put in a tough spot by being named as the new top anchor the same day LaFlamme went public. There was no chance for an elegant passing of the baton, just a clumsy fumble that, in the eyes of viewers, pits them against each other.

But Bell Media does not own LaFlamme’s talent, passion, dedication or probity. She doesn’t need CTV. And I know I’m not the only one who can’t wait to see what she does next.

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @JenZoratti