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!  

• " ‘The optics of it are not good’: Lisa LaFlamme’s shock ouster at CTV stuns colleagues, but not industry watchers" (The Toronto Star, Aug. 15th) 
• "Bell Executive Who Fired Lisa LaFlamme Interfered With CTV News Coverage, Says Colleague: "He doesn't like it when women push back." " (Jesse Brown, Canadaland, Aug. 15th) 
• "Lisa LaFlamme ouster leaves tensions high at CTV News. ‘Colleagues are sad and scared’ " (The Toronto Star, Aug. 16th) 
• "Lisa LaFlamme was a decorated news veteran who deserved better" (Rosie DiManno, The Toronto Star, Aug. 16th)  
• "Most of all, though, LaFlamme got the chop because she put journalistic integrity ahead of revenue generating. Stories that were important to tell, in person, most especially for someone who’d spent years as the network’s chief foreign correspondent. She continued to do that — covering the Ukraine war earlier this year — because she had reporter legs. Anchors rarely actually cover the news as reporters anymore, or they’re propped in front of a camera while producers do all the donkey work... She pushed back at tinpot news bosses — on news coverage decisions and internal disruption — and that, I’m told, is the gist of the thing."
• "CTV’s shocking termination of Lisa LaFlamme shows disloyalty to her and to viewers" (Vinay Menon, The Toronto Star, Aug. 16th)  
• "Everyone deserves better than to be blindsided, shocked and saddened by a murky “business decision” after more than three decades of stalwart service. When a company ignores loyalty, it invites self-destruction. When a media outlet allows executive ego and the vagaries of a “changing landscape” to kill the bedrock values of editorial independence, that’s a wrap." 
• "A messy goodbye to a respected figure in journalism" (Kevin Newman, The Line, Aug. 16th)  
• "The abrupt end of an anchor’s career makes sense to HR experts and the executives hoping the audience will move on quickly, but it poisons the team... there had to be a better way to handle such a delicate transition at a time when trust in journalism is already ebbing. Eliminating one of the public’s most visible advocates of responsible journalism, a woman who broke the glass ceiling and sustained a ratings lead for a decade, is a strange way of protecting a rare legacy news brand, and ensuring reliable journalism endures." 
• "The business of journalism is ruthless. Lisa LaFlamme is just the latest casualty" (Robyn Urback, The Globe & Mail, Aug. 17th) 
• "Lisa LaFlamme deserved more from Bell Media" (Johanna Schneller, The Globe & Mail, Aug. 17th)
• "She gave CTV 35 years of excellent work. CTV owner Bell Media didn’t even give her 20 minutes." 
• "Lisa LaFlamme ‘going grey’ questioned by CTV executive, says senior company official" (Robyn Doolittle, The Globe & Mail, Aug. 18th) 
• "Was Lisa LaFlamme’s silver hair weaponized against her?"  (Leanne Delap, The Toronto Star, Aug. 18th) 
• "Reaction to Lisa LaFlamme’s dismissal prompts CTV newsroom review by Bell Media"  (Marsha McLeod, The Globe and Mail, Aug. 19th) 
• "The Lisa LaFlamme controversy, from a PR perspective: ‘I’ve never seen a better example of what not to do’ " (Maria Iqbal, The Toronto Star, Aug. 19th) 
• "Anger as Lisa LaFlamme dropped as Canada TV anchor after going grey" (Leyland Cecco, The Guardian, Aug. 19th) 
• "A popular, award-winning TV news anchor is fired. Was it the hair?" (Claire Parker, The Washington Post, Aug. 19th) 
• "Lisa LaFlamme’s bio may be scrubbed from their site but no way Bell Media and CTV News can walk back this disaster" (Rosie DiManno, The Toronto Star, Aug. 20th) 
• "There’s no place for Lisa LaFlamme’s grey hair in a world where men call the shots" (Heather Mallick, The Toronto Star, Aug. 20th)  
• "Bell Media has agreed to a third-party investigation of itself — this is what panicked companies do — to prove it had no animus to … actually, I don’t know what it hopes it will prove because everyone knows women will always get it in the neck anyway."
• "Grey matter: The Lisa LaFlamme hair conversation has resonated with many women" (Sarah Laing, The Toronto Star, Aug. 20th) 
• "Lisa LaFlamme’s ouster thrusts into frame what women on TV endure" (Jeremy Nuttall, The Toronto Star, Aug. 21st) 
• "Bell Media’s ‘Let’s Talk’ must become ‘Let’s Listen’ following LaFlamme fiasco" (Bill Wilkerson, The Toronto Star, Aug. 22nd)  
• "L’Affaire LaFlamme: how was it imagined this would end well?" (Andrew Coyne, The Globe and Mail, Aug. 23rd)   
• "Others have written feelingly of the apparent sexism and ageism at work in the decision to remove a 58-year-old woman at the top of her game, especially after her predecessor, Lloyd Robertson, was allowed to stay until he was 77. Me, I’m more struck by how cosmically dumb it was. Cockups on this scale only come along once a generation, so it is appropriate that we all take a moment out of our busy days to contemplate its majesty."
• "Thank you, Miss Clairol" (Ruth Marcus, The Washington Post, Aug. 23rd) 
• "So, was it her hair or wasn’t it? Maybe only Melling knows for sure — the executive and the anchor reportedly clashed over spending on foreign coverage and other issues. But it seems about as obvious as gray roots that the toxic intersection of ageism and sexism played some role in LaFlamme’s sudden departure."