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Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Shades of grey

I generally watch the flagship nightly newscast on CBC ("The National," which has been running forever). The CBC, our publicly funded television & radio broadcaster, is sometimes (often?) the subject of both scorn and derision from Canadians (some of it earned, some of it not), but I will admit I retain a lot of affection for it:  from the time I was a toddler until I was 14, and we moved closer to a city (and the U.S. border), we only had ONE TV channel:  the CBC (pulled in via antenna/"rabbit ears"). (Hard to believe in today's multi-channel, multi-platform universe, isn't it??) 

In recent years, however, the number one national newscast in the country has been on rival network CTV, which is currently owned by Bell Media, a division of telecommunications conglomerate Bell Canada. For the past 11 years, the program has been anchored by Lisa LaFlamme, 58, whose career at the network spanned almost 35 years, including time in Afghanistan and on Parliament Hill, covering elections, natural disasters, royal weddings and jubilees, Olympics and, most recently, the Pope's visit to Canada. She's won many awards, including Best News Anchor, National, at the Canadian Screen Awards multiple times -- most recently this past spring, for the second year in a row. 

During the pandemic, LaFlamme, like many professional women around the world, struggled to hide her grey roots while unable to visit her hairdresser during lockdown.  Also like many, one day she finally decided "to heck with this" and began to let her hair go grey. 

“I finally said, ‘why bother? I’m going grey.’ Honestly, if I had known the lockdown could be so liberating on that front I would have done it a lot sooner,” The Globe and Mail reports her saying. Frankly, it looked/looks gorgeous (although I suspect that since the salons reopened, she may have had some help from her hairdresser to achieve that particularly amazing shade of steely grey, lol), and many women of a certain age applauded her decision. 

Apparently not everyone was a fan of the hair, however.  It's been reported (initially by The Globe & Mail) as one potential reason why LaFlamme recently lost her job, with two years still to go on her contract. She was informed of the decision on June 29th and kept working until the end of July. The news was kept quiet until Monday, August 15th:  it flashed on my cellphone while I was in pre-op, awaiting gallbladder removal surgery.  It was announced by LaFlamme herself on her personal social media accounts, in a two-minute video recorded at her family cottage, in which she says she was "blindsided" and "still shocked and saddened by Bell Media's decision." 

“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. “While it is crushing to be leaving CTV National News in a manner that is not my choice, please know reporting to you has truly been the greatest honor of my life and I thank you for always being there.”

(She has not spoken publicly since then -- but she did pointedly pose for photos with her Canadian Screen Award, wearing her Order of Canada pin, on Aug. 17th.  :)  )  

The official explanation (hastily issued after LaFlamme went public) was "changing viewer habits" (not specified) and a "business decision to move its acclaimed news show, CTV NATIONAL NEWS, and the role of its Chief News Anchor in a different direction." To add insult to injury, the network immediately announced LaFlamme's (younger, male) successor -- 39-year-old Omar Sachedina (who is a fine reporter, but that's not the point here).  

It wasn't too long before the stories started leaking out. The Globe and Mail reported that one of the corporate bosses -- Michael Melling, a man in his 40s -- with a receding hairline! -- is said to have asked who "authorized" LaFlamme's decision to let her hair go grey. (!!!) The Globe also mentioned reports that LaFlamme clashed with her superiors over newsroom priorities and resources:  for example, LaFlamme insisted the network should send a crew to cover the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in London earlier this summer (instead of covering the event from the studio in Toronto), and that they should cough up the extra money to reserve hotel rooms in Krakow, Poland, to ensure CTV's crew members covering the war in Ukraine had a safe place to retreat to if necessary. 

The reaction in the press and on social media has been furious, with cries of ageism and sexism. (Even the Washington Post in the U.S. has taken note, with both a news report and a column by Ruth Marcus. The Guardian also ran an article.) Many noted that past (*cough* -- male) anchors on both major networks got to retire at the time of their choosing at ages 69 (Peter Mansbridge, CBC, who made jokes about his receding hairline over the years -- he was mostly bald by the time he retired) and 77 (LaFlamme's predecessor Lloyd Robertson, CTV), with much fanfare, including a lengthy interval between the retirement announcement and final broadcast, a televised sendoff and goodbye messages to their viewers. CTV claims they gave LaFlamme the opportunity to return to the anchor desk to say goodbye to viewers. But, as Rosie DiManno noted in the Toronto Star, what wasn't said was that the offer hinged on LaFlamme's agreement to say it was a mutual decision to part ways. (It was not.) 

The network was eventually forced to issue a statement announcing an independent, third-party internal workplace review of the newsroom. It also held a town hall meeting for employees to (supposedly) address their concerns -- which only made matters worse when executives refused to answer some questions, cut off one questioner's microphone and ended the meeting abruptly before everyone who wanted to ask a question had had a turn. Some have noted that LaFlamme's firing has done huge damage to the credibility of Bell's iconic mental health campaign, "Let's Talk.The Toronto Star quoted Jeff Lake, who's spent 34 years in the public relations business as saying, “For a media company to say there are too many ‘false narratives’ and then refuse to speak to media about it is hypocritical... I’ve never seen a better example of what not to do.”

This story is personal to me in so many ways:  like LaFlamme, I'm a woman, and a woman of a "certain age," who felt the pressure to keep up appearances (and, yes, colour my hair and hide the grey) as my colleagues got younger and younger while I got older (and was eventually ushered out the door, presumably in favour of someone younger and cheaper). Like LaFlamme, I'm a journalist by training, although I wound up working in corporate communications. (In that respect, as someone who contributed to many crisis management efforts over the years, I'm fascinated/horrified by just how badly CTV/Bell Media managed to screw this up.)  Like LaFlamme, I also spent decades building my career within the same male-dominated company (28 years for me, 35 for her). 

And, as I discovered, LaFlamme is "one of us."  (See the screenshot below.) 

She -- we, all of us -- deserve so, so much better. 

*** *** *** 

I've been following the news coverage of this quite closely and have bookmarked a whole raft of articles that have informed this piece... I don't expect any of you to read any of them, much less all, lol, but I'm posting them here for myself for reference!  

3 comments:

  1. Argh! When you wrote that some idiot man (with a receding hairline - good aside, Lb! lol) asked "who "authorized" LaFlamme's decision to let her hair go grey." I said some very bad words! lol And as someone who has worked in client relationships/marketing/diplomacy, like you, I often look at companies/govt departments/political parties etc and think, "don't they know anything about public relations?" (An aside, that's why our PM is usually so good - her degree is in communications.)

    Sigh. But that is all so disappointing. Anyone who says women have equality these days needs to look at this. As I've said before, I've been ignored for work opportunities since I have been in mostly my 50s, except by other women. "Not a good fit" they say. What, do they think grey hair is catching? Or that experience and wisdom might show them up? (I suspect the latter! Of course! lol)

    Great post, Loribeth!


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    1. It's been well over a week since this happened and (as you can probably tell!) I am still furious. (And I didn't even watch her newscast that often!)

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  2. This happened to a woman in the Nashville, TN area. She had been on the news since we moved here in the 80s. She came back from an assignment with her termination papers on her desk. I think she was suppose to finish out the month but she packed up that night...well early morning as it was about 2am and left. She later sued the station and won for age discrimination. Between her and about 4 others who were all fried in awful ways, the public didn't like it and about 40% of viewers jumped ship to the other two rival stations.

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