Tuesday August 30, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday August 30, 2022

Neanderthals and Strong Women

From a makeshift studio and with a news anchor’s measured tones, one of Canada’s most familiar faces shocked viewers, created a PR disaster at a national broadcaster and set off intense conversations about how employers treat women as they age.

She did it with a polite, unexpected farewell.

“I guess this is my sign-off from CTV,” the news anchor, Lisa LaFlamme said in a video that announced the abrupt end of her 35-year career at the network.

The dismissal of Ms. LaFlamme, who was most likely one of the newsroom’s highest-paid employees, followed a torrent of layoffs and budget cuts at CTV’s network and local news operations over the past seven years, which were made despite government assistance to news organizations. As in the United States, the internet and years of collapsing advertising revenue have left many Canadian news organizations in dire financial straits. The executive put on leave, Michael Melling, had overseen recent layoffs and cuts at CTV.

Though some speculated that Ms. LaFlamme’s dismissal was tied to the financial crisis in journalism, most conversations centered on a deeply rooted problem that extends far beyond the news industry: sexism. Many journalists and viewers noted that Ms. LaFlamme’s predecessors, both men, were able to retire at 69 and 77, and that both were able to offer their farewells on-air.

Amanda Watson, a sociologist at Simon Fraser University who studies media, said Ms. LaFlamme’s dismissal resonated with many people because it spoke to the problem of economic precarity — the risk of losing a job despite significant success over a long career — and because of the anchor’s sex and age. (The New York Times) 

Meanwhile, public instances of threats and intimidation of women in public life have intensified in recent weeks, with significant examples of abuse targeted toward politicians — most recently, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland — as well as activists and journalists.

For weeks, a group of journalists, particularly journalists of colour, have publicly shared a series of private, anonymous emails they’ve received. Those emails contained specific, targeted and disturbing threats of violence and sexual assault, as well as racist and misogynistic language.

“It was very insidious, and the language around it was a perversion of some progressive language that was used to basically abuse and torment us. Also, we were told we were put on a list of journalists to be silenced,” Erica Ifill, a columnist for The Hill Times and a podcast host, told CBC Radio’s The House for a segment that aired Saturday.

Public instances of threats and intimidation of women in public life have intensified in recent weeks, with significant examples of abuse targeted toward politicians — most recently, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland — as well as activists and journalists.

For weeks, a group of journalists, particularly journalists of colour, have publicly shared a series of private, anonymous emails they’ve received. Those emails contained specific, targeted and disturbing threats of violence and sexual assault, as well as racist and misogynistic language.

“It was very insidious, and the language around it was a perversion of some progressive language that was used to basically abuse and torment us. Also, we were told we were put on a list of journalists to be silenced,” Erica Ifill, a columnist for The Hill Times and a podcast host, told CBC Radio’s The House for a segment that aired Saturday. (CBC News)