Was the overthrow of Lisa LaFlamme a ‘business decision’ or a targeted coup?

On Monday afternoon, CTV News anchor Jennifer Burke was told she would brief the television audience on Lisa LaFlamme’s exit.

Read this: A boilerplate statement, in corporate parlance, about the departure of one of the most recognizable faces and most decorated professionals in the news business.

Burke looked at the words they were putting into his mouth. “No, I won’t.”

That, multiple sources told the Star, seemed to bother CTV news manager Sophia Skopelitis. Burke was told to come for his on-air news shift at 4 p.m., instead of 3 p.m. as scheduled. Skopelitis turned instead to Angie Seth, who was hosting the show from noon to 3 pm, which ran for an hour. For Seth, who was barely aware of what was happening because he had been on the air and had only glanced at a tweet about LaFlamme, the news that was already exploding on social media was cold reading, off the charts. teleprompter. and delivered verbatim. At the end of which she added the briefest personal comment, thanking LaFlamme.

There could be repercussions for going even slightly off script. As there could be for Burke’s refusal. Burke, though for many years an on-air personality on CTV, is self-employed. “He may not have any more shifts,” a senior source at the station told Star Tuesday.

Multiple sources spoke to Star and requested anonymity due to concerns about professional repercussions.

LaFlamme’s executive producer, Rosa Hwang, was nowhere to be seen when the news was mishandled. She had been told to stay out of the newsroom all week, according to a source, “a strategic decision” so that Hwang, as she feared, would not go berserk.

They’re playing hardball, CTV execs, desperately trying all Monday to control the message of LaFlamme’s “departure,” making it seem like it’s the veteran’s own decision rather than essentially a termination. LaFlamme, with 35 years at the CTV mast, 11 years as a national anchor and senior editor. But, above all, a reporter, with vast experience covering national and international stories: on the front lines of wars, at the polling station, in disasters and catastrophes, royal weddings and the Olympic Games. Him competing around the world wherever the news broke, most recently tying up half a dozen live specials on the road on the Pope’s apology tour in Canada while also delivering multiple nightly newscasts broadcast to different time zones.

Pope Francis in Quebec City on July 28 was the last time viewers saw LaFlamme, until his shocking revelation on Twitter on Monday that his employer had terminated his contract with CTV, a schism that changed his mind. life and that was imparted to him a month before. he “surprised” her and that he was not allowed to share with his colleagues. He was also not allowed to sign on air.

LaFlamme did not leave voluntarily. LaFlamme didn’t want to go. At 58, he had assumed, perhaps naively, because he knows his business well, that there were still many years ahead. When his immediate predecessor, Lloyd Robertson, left CTV, he enjoyed a long and affectionate farewell, addressing his impending retirement in a conversational manner, entirely befitting a respected news icon.

Robertson was 77 years old, about two decades older than LaFlamme is now.

“A lot of us remember the whole farewell to Lloyd,” a senior staff member told the Star. “Enough time was given. He got multiple goodbyes. And they couldn’t even give Lisa 30 seconds?

But she is a woman and women can be careless. Maybe someone didn’t like the hair that LaFlamme had allowed to turn silver naturally and elegantly during the pandemic?

Women are not allowed to age, however gracefully, on television. There was also the matter of his salary, reported at $350,000 a year. Deserved. A person puts in so much time, works so hard, brings so much brilliance to their work (CTV enjoyed LaFlamme’s professional skills), they are entitled to adequate compensation. And then one day you are punished for it. Because news can be made so much cheaper these days, resources are slashed left and right, young people are hired at entry-level wages, and let loose on the news as digital gossip.

Above all, though, LaFlamme took the hit because he put journalistic integrity above revenue generation. Stories that were important to tell in person, especially for someone who had been the network’s chief foreign correspondent for years. She continued to do that, covering the Ukraine war earlier this year, because she had the legs of a reporter. Anchors rarely cover the news as reporters anymore, or lean in front of a camera while producers do all the grunt work.

That wasn’t Lisa. She is my friend, I will use her first name. I was in Afghanistan with Lisa, among many other hellish places, and watched in awe as she practically single-handedly put together a news program, booking satellite space, standing there in the middle of the night after long days in the field. And because she had to look at least halfway decent, unlike print reporters, by washing her hair beforehand in a trailer bathroom sink.

At one point, Lisa was out in the field with the troops for a week, living with them, sleeping in the troop transport, walking through the desert to perform bodily functions, and using bottled water for sponge baths, always in a good mood.

Once, wading through a stream, he was shot. “I was in too deep,” she said later, shocked by her experience.

But that’s the thing. She immersed herself in the stories and was revered for it.

She could be hard, she could be soft, she could get emotional. Eyes on, boots on the ground, in the middle of whatever story she was telling, but never lost in thought. Not a little grace note on TV, that is.

Why would anyone take all that talent and do without it? Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?

She pushed small-time news bosses, on news coverage decisions and internal disruption, and that, I was told, is the essence of the matter. Several sources have pointed the finger at Michael Melling, vice president of news at Bell Media, as the pitcher. Melling lacked domestic and international experience when he was appointed to the job about eight months ago and began replacing key people with more “compliant” staff who would not question his authority, according to a senior source at the station.

Melling, the sources say, would consult with high-ranking men in the newsroom, but rarely with LaFlamme.

“She has a lot more experience than him,” said a staff member. “It was really weird…In the editorial discussions, Lisa had the institutional knowledge about some of these big stories, like Afghanistan, like Ukraine. He wouldn’t take advantage of all these contacts she had, he never appreciated that.

“Listen, this woman stood up to the Taliban. This woman had a gun put to her head. Michael Melling doesn’t scare her.”

The irony is that it was LaFlamme who tried to calm his colleagues down when Melling replaced Wendy Freeman, who had run CTV News for 12 years. “Listen, let’s give him a chance,” she urged.

(Melling did not return Star’s messages.)

So maybe he’s carrying out orders from higher ups. Because there’s no way Melling could have gotten rid of LaFlamme without the approval of the suits higher up the food chain. But forget the nonsense in CTV and Bell Media press releases about business decisions and going in a different direction.

This was a sexist, age-discriminatory power play that has caused immense outrage among television audiences and within the industry.

Lisa has a lot of second act juice left. Long involved in humanitarian aid projects (she often spends vacation time on aid missions abroad), she suspects she could go further down that road in an executive capacity. Yes, that’s right, she’s done with the cutthroat business she loved.

LaFlamme always ended his news broadcast with a simple goodnight. On July 28, he traded it, and in hindsight, that was a clue.

Goodbye everyone and thanks for watching.

Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist who covers sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno

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