A wishful take on the Bell Media fiasco
Original Kitchener, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Tuesday 23 August 2022
Part of the reason I chose to call this project the “Evening Muse” is that I’m partial to a slow approach to events as they unfold, in contrast to the frenetic “pulse beat” news standard in the broadcasting field, and it’s “extra! extra! … hot off the press” antecedents in print. I prefer to reflect on developments after things have calmed down, when the attentions of 24/7 news providers have gone on to other headline grabbing items. So I usually try to avoid dealing with current news topics, especially if they’re “hot” as in controversial or sensational. But I can’t resist musing over the outrage generated by the way CTV news anchor Lisa Laflamme has been treated by the Bell Media conglomerate, and what the end result may be.
To get a sense of the public mood I’m relying mainly on Twitter posts, such as:
<<A messy goodbye to a respected figure in journalism. 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.>>
<<More criticism flowed Tuesday over what some past and present CTV News employees are describing as a “culture of fear” within the organization, a day after it emerged that the network had ended Lisa LaFlamme's contract.>>
<< Shortly after Michael Melling became head of CTV News, he raised questions about host Lisa LaFlamme’s hair. According to a senior CTV official who was present at the meeting, Mr. Melling asked who had approved the decision to “let Lisa’s hair go grey.” >>
<< Words fail me to describe my anger that CTV - Bell Media have reportedly fired national news anchor Lisa Laflamme. Nasty f***ers. I won’t be tuning in to CTV as a major news source anymore.>>
<< Terrible news...Lisa deserved better.>>
And, of course, there’s Lisa LaFlamme’s own brilliantly conceived and delivered public announcement.
My contribution to the last comment thread quoted above (a Facebook exchange, not via Twitter) was:
<< Deserves better, present tense: This isn't finished. Even a corporate behemoth like Bell Media isn't impervious to the kind of public outcry that this has generated. This Michael Melling character is going to lose his job; Lisa LaFlamme will receive an apology, and, if they have any sense at all, an offer to come back to the corporation for at least a graceful transition period with the new anchor, Omar Sachedina. They don't deserve her co-operation, but she'll probably comply, primarily for us, the public. In the end, Bell Media's position in the Canadian news, information and civic deliberation ecosystem will be stronger than ever.>>
That’s my prediction. I’m speaking as someone who has been trying to refrain from confrontational debate for almost a year now. But the outrage that this has generated is contagious. Besides the stone cold termination of a respected public figure, the sexism and ageism are obvious and completely unacceptable: They won't be able to wriggle their way out of the mess this blundering vice president has made, so their only option is to throw him under the bus.
I’m also looking at things from a Waterloo-Wellington perspective, a unique constellation of communities that, in the early days of Canadian television, was relegated to the private rather than the public broadcasting system when the powers that be divvied up the hinterlands. Our television station once played a reciprocal role in the functioning of that network, including supplying talent and producing as well as receiving national programming. Lisa LaFlamme began her career here in Kitchener. But now the Greater Waterloo, Wellington and Guelph area is just a revenue ranch, and almost all the “content” flows in one direction only.
Something like the scenario I’ve sketched out would certainly be the preferable outcome for all concerned, except, perhaps, Melling (who, incidentally, with his Laurier MBA also happens to be a product of the Waterloo talent farm). But even though he comes across as the villain of the story, I don’t think he’s done anything that might lead the global corporate world to the conclusion that he doesn’t have the right stuff. This is how large, publicly traded, for profit corporations all operate. Genuine loyalty is simply not part of the equation, whether it’s personal loyalty to their own “associates”, to the communities where they operate (e.g. Flint, Michigan), or to the public they provide goods or services for (as an example of utter contempt for a clientele, Greyhound comes immediately to mind). I’m sure Melling will find a new position somewhere that’s at least as good as the vice presidency he’s going to be leaving.
An outcome like the one I’m predicting could be a win-win-win-win-win for LaFlamme, Sachedina, Bell Media, its management as well as the shareholders, and for everyone who has come to rely on CTV for news coverage. But it would not be the best possible result for Canadian journalism, Canadian democracy, or for Canada the land, the people, in whole and in part, including Waterloo, Kitchener, Guelph, Cambridge, New Hamburg and Elmira. Our communities, and other places like them throughout non-metropolitan Ontario and Canada at large, have not been well served by “business decisions” emanating from corporate media conglomerates over the last few decades.
The result I’m wishing for is one in which the Lisa LaFlamme debacle becomes a last straw for all the people and all the communities who have been hurt by “business decisions” involving firings, layoffs, outsourcings, austerities, mergers, takeovers, makeovers and shut downs emanating from remote power echelons over the last 30-40 years. This could be the point when people who care about such matters finally start declaring “we’re fed up, we won’t take it any more, and we’re going to do something about it.”
Ah, but now I’m slipping into the kind of confrontational belligerence I’ve been trying to stay away from. And I’ve gone beyond the topic at hand, which is how these vast corporate machines treat their own “associates”, from top to bottom, as expendable. How media empires treat the towns, cities, suburbs and countrysides they’ve acquired as territory is certainly related to how “human resources” are managed, but now we’re talking about the very nature of the beast, not just its habits and temperament.
Before we get carried away with outrage, let’s keep in mind that CTV news remains a structure through which a significant number of Canada’s broadcast journalists are still able to practice their craft, and that CKCO-DT Channel 13 is the only television station we’ve ever had here in Grand River Country. The damage they’ve done to themselves carries over to the industry as a whole, and to the public they serve.
It is also important to remember that anger can quickly degenerate into the kind of resentment that demagogues exploit when they start talking about “fake news,” the “lying press” or “downtown elites”. General mistrust of traditional, mainstream media spells danger for democracy, civility and the common good because it helps create fertile ground for fear and resentment mongers like Maxime Bernier, Pierre Poilievre, Doug Ford, Danielle Smith (front runner for the United Conservative leadership in Alberta) and their ilk in the US, UK, France, Hungary, Brazil, India … .
So I’m saying it calmly, without malice or prejudice: The media empire that carries the historic Bell name as currently structured is not a wholly beneficial presence in the land, especially beyond metropolitan power centres. The same goes for Corus, Rogers, Torstar, Postmedia or any of the other conglomerates. Concentration stifles enterprise, limits innovation, eliminates variety, squanders talent, wastes lives, triggers mistrust, plunders heritage and erases place. Instead of serving as a counterbalance, CBC operates with the same top-down, centralized power structure, minus the profit-seeking shareholders but with a type of metropolitan mandarin in charge whose behaviour is only slightly different from those at the top in the world of private interests.
We can do better. We deserve better. And given the challenges we are faced with at the present hour, we are in urgent need of better -- i.e., a healthier, livelier, more firmly grounded and more effective news, information and civic deliberation ecosystem.
Walking away in protest and retreating to a fragmented “alternative” media scene seems counterproductive. Direct confrontation would be costly, laborious and ultimately futile: These are formidable forces, with armies of lawyers, spin doctors, fixers and strategists at their command. The problems we’re touching on here are rooted in the culture and structure of large corporations at this stage of their development, and therefore can’t be readily adjusted through controls and regulations. But a shared resolve to do something to redress the imbalances and fill the gaps that have formed, especially on the home front, could be the beginning of something better.
A logical counterweight to monolithic control is incremental improvement driven by local initiative, on the ground where we live, work, learn and associate. Progress is best achieved one step at a time, especially if the project is rich in purpose, conviction and dedication but lacks ready access to working capital. That doesn’t mean it has to be slow, with results that are relatively minor or totally inconsequential. If there is movement on all fronts, in a thousand places, by tens of thousands of practitioners, and hundreds of thousands of readers, listeners, viewers, explorers, learners, inquirers, doers and voters, we just might get somewhere.