There’s more . . .  to the story for sure. CTV News Executive, Michael Melling is going on leave. He wants to spend more time with his family. Decided on this after Lisa’s controversy made an appearance. Last week The Globe and Mail revealed that shortly after Mr. Melling took the role of CTV News Head, and asked questions about who approved “to let Lisa’s hair grow grey?”, according to a senior CTV official, present at a meeting. In a statement sent to The Globe on Friday, Mr. Melling said this was “categorically untrue.” The Globe also reported on tensions between Mr. Melling and Ms. LaFlamme over newsroom priorities, story coverage, and resources. News broke that Ms. LaFlamme was leaving the show she had helmed for more than a decade nearly two weeks ago. In the days that followed, the story spiralled into a national outrage.
Brands such as Dove and Wendy’s introduced ad campaigns in support of women going ‘grey’. In this case, Ms. LaFlamme had earned praise from women across Canada when she decided to stop dyeing her hair early in the pandemic. Mr. Melling and Ms. Moses, held a joint town hall meeting. A day later the company planned an independent third-party review. Staff raised concerns about the review. Journalists within the CTV Newsroom sent a letter to Bell Canada chief executive MirKo Bibic, Bell’s board of directors, and Wade Oosterman, president of Bell Media, expressing a lack of confidence in Mr. Melling’s leadership. He concluded “We have no confidence in Mr. Melling’s ability to lead the news division.”  In May, 2019, as general manager of CP24 and CTV News Toronto, Mr. Melling announced “Project Innovation.” Partly through this initiative, he developed a reputation internally as “The Cutter.”  Will Ms. LaFlamme return? She would be welcome