[CliffFletcher]

As a former journalist who has seen half a dozen friends laid off from the industry in the last 10 years, there’s nothing at all surprising about this. The traditional media is dying in slow motion. Cost cutting is severe, unrelenting, and it won’t end until the media is a fraction the size of what it is today. Everyone who works in traditional media know this. Nobody should be surprised when their number comes up.

Robyn Urback at the Globe and Mail sums up the environment in journalism today:

The business of journalism is ruthless. Lisa LaFlamme is just the latest casualty

Journalism, particularly in the digital age, is an exceptionally cruel business. Cost-cutting measures are unremitting. Layoffs are routine. I’ve had friends lose their jobs on maternity leave, and I worked in one newsroom where a beloved editor-in-chief was suddenly escorted out of the office when the publisher decided the paper needed fresh eyes...

Observers have been quick to conclude that Ms. LaFlamme’s ousting from CTV was ultimately the result of ageism and sexism, noting that other evening news anchors – notably, CTV’s Lloyd Robertson and CBC’s Peter Mansbridge – were allowed to age on-air and retire on their terms (they were 77 and 69 respectively), whereas Ms. LaFlamme was forced out at 58, reportedly with years still left on her contract. While it’s certainly possible that social prejudices played a role (along with, according to reporting by Canadaland and the Toronto Sun, interpersonal tensions) her ouster is not an isolated decision for Bell Media, which has been cutting and slashing programs – including letting go of big personalities – for the last several years.

Last February, Bell abruptly pulled Vancouver’s TSN 1040 off the air, axing popular and long-time hosts including Jeff Paterson, Blake Price and Rick Dhaliwal. It did not renew the contract of veteran Montreal radio host Terry DiMonte last May and laid off Vancouver News at Six co-anchor Scott Roberts this past March, leaving Mi-Jung Lee as the program’s solo anchor. And over the last several months, Bell has gutted the on-air talent at Toronto’s Newstalk 1010. The thread connecting all of these layoffs does not appear to be age and sex, but rather an inclination to ruthlessly cull ostensibly expensive talent on traditional media platforms...

...This is not to defend the abrupt and callous manner in which Bell appears to have cut ties with Ms. LaFlamme, especially since, in doing so, it may lose some of the loyal viewers it wants to retain. But rather, it is to point out that the business of journalism is a most savage form of Hunger Games, where the strongest competitors can, in an instant, become the weakest links. It’s not kind, or fair – unfortunately, it’s business.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opin...amme-ctv-news/