TORONTO – As they face their second week of backlash over their choice to fire national anchor Lisa LaFlamme, CTV News execs say they wish they’d had someone on their staff with years of experience gauging the pulse of Canadians who could have pointed out that the move would provoke a massive response.
“If only we’d had someone working with us with an intimate understanding of what news stories matter to people,” said news VP Michael Melling. “Maybe someone who had spent about 35 years doing it everyday.”
“Someone with the seniority and confidence to come to us and say ‘this is a mistake’ when we are about to mess up.”
Behind the scenes, execs blamed the move on an absence of ‘strong women’ in the newsroom who were empowered to speak their mind without fear of being labelled ‘difficult to work with’ or ‘demanding’ or ‘a grey-haired shrew who makes too much money anyway’.
“You know it’s strange. I feel like we used to have someone just like that. What was her name again?” said Melling.
In related news Hockey Canada execs had already sent CTV News execs several fruit baskets in gratitude for moving the news cycle off them.
