Should Going Grey Harm Your Career — Or End It?

CTV news anchor Lisa LaFlamme’s termination sparks debate on ageism

Images of Lisa LaFlamme at various stages in her career. Her replacement (Omar Sachedina) is also pictured. Author’s merged screen capture.

Canadian TV news anchor Lisa LaFlamme has been described as “Canada’s Katie Couric.” She’s led Canada’s most highly watched newscast since 2011, and was awarded the Canadian Screen Award for best national news anchor again this year.

So CTV’s viewers were stunned to learn — from Lisa, on Twitter — that she’d been dumped from her role with two years remaining on her contract. LaFlamme declared herself “blindsided” in her video statement.

When word got out that the VP who axed the popular news anchor had been previously witnessed demanding to know “who approved the decision to let Lisa’s hair go grey?,” public outrage grew.

Should going grey harm your career, or “get you gone”?

For its part, CTV’s parent company, Bell Media, maintains that the contract termination was simply “a business decision to move … in a different direction.” Perhaps factors other than hair colour were also at play, but the debate about “the grey” isn’t going away.

Like many women, Lisa had announced she’d decided to stop dyeing her hair when salons closed down during the pandemic. She said she found her decision…