Disclaimer: The author of this article, Christy Somos, worked at CTVNews.ca as a digital journalist and CTV National News as associate producer from 2019 until 2023, when she resigned.
Donald Trump is about to become president of the United States for a second term, a development that has governments around the world re-evaluating how they will interact with the U.S. across all sectors — from foreign policy and trade deals, to intelligence.
During his first tenure, Trump made repeated swipes at any news outlet he deemed “fake news” or that provided unflattering coverage of his reign.
In the lead up to his second inauguration, Trump has threatened to turn Canada into the “51st State,” with repeated comments on annexation, tariffs and border security.
These remarks come amid Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation as leader of the Liberal Party, the proroguing of Parliament, several key Liberal ministers resigning from cabinet and whispers of a general election around the corner.
The need for effective journalism is more paramount than ever.
Unfortunately, Canadian newsrooms appear to be ill-equipped to meet the moment.
At A Glance
Leader of the Opposition and Conservative Party Pierre Poilievre, who by all accounts is on course to become Canada’s next prime minister, has been vocal about defunding the CBC.
The Crown corporation has been battling rising criticism concerning almost all of its operations: From editorial decisions, to layoffs, to management’s handsome bonuses.
Last year, Global News and its parent company Corus Entertainment laid off dozens of unionized employees from newsrooms across the country, blaming economic and regulatory pressures.
Postmedia, the owner of the National Post and Financial Post, is majority owned by an American hedge fund and has a long history of cutting newsrooms.
Other major outlets like the Globe and Mail, while subscription-based, face major competition from CNN, Apple News and The New York Times, which have swept up Canadian news consumers in “large numbers,” according to the Reuters Institute.
But perhaps one of the most obvious canaries in the Canadian media coal mine is CTV News and its parent company, Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE).
Inside CTV News
The first and very public sword stroke was CTV News’ decision to drop veteran anchor Lisa LaFlamme, arguably one of Canada’s most trusted and recognizable journalists with a career spanning decades.
The fallout from that decision delivered a hit to the outlet’s reputation and rattled employees enough that management called in a third party to investigate grievances across the organization.
More cuts would follow.
In February 2024, BCE cut multiple television news programs after announcing it was eliminating 4,800 jobs and selling 45 of its 103 regional radio stations.
CTV News closed foreign bureaus and laid off veteran correspondents like Paul Workman and Jill Macyshon.
Familiar faces that walked Canadians through some of the biggest stories across the world are now silent, with insights about their departures from CTV locked up behind non-disclosure agreements.
The Maple understands that the majority of the correspondents have since settled with Bell/CTV News over matters of severance.
For insight into the current situation at CTV News, The Maple spoke with several current and former employees who worked across the TV and digital journalism landscape — some with more than a decade of experience under their belt.
They have chosen to remain anonymous to avoid professional repercussions.
The employees interviewed for this article all sounded the alarm at the sweeping cuts, the restructuring of teams and what they see as declining journalistic quality at CTV News.
Some employees of CTV News’ national digital team described to The Maple their frustration with attempting to get news stories approved by editors who the sources believe have little-to-no relevant journalistic experience and who are focused on, as one source put it, “numbers, not news.”
“There used to be way more opportunities to pitch original stories or at least cover major events from a Canadian angle,” one employee told The Maple.
“Now I spend hours posting wires or writing clickbait so that management can inflate their data to look good for corporate,” they alleged.
“What does that say about their priorities,” the employee told The Maple. “I’d laugh if I wasn’t so damn sad.”
CTV News’ homepage on most days shows headlines from The Canadian Press, the Associated Press, CNN and Reuters, with original work sparsely populated throughout.
The additional sections of sponsored content and shopping trends seem to be casting a wide net for any clicks from Canadians looking for news.
A disclaimer on the CTV News website says the shopping trends team is “independent of the journalists at CTV News” but that they may “earn a commission” when the public uses their links to shop.
Bylines from CTV News journalists are often those of local bureaus (which are already stretched thin) or of broadcast correspondents who are pulling double duty: scrambling to produce packages for TV by deadline while writing accompanying articles for digital.
Bell announced in its February 2024 cuts that “multi-skilled journalists” would replace news correspondent and technician teams reporting to CTV National News in Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, while other correspondent changes would be made in Ottawa, The Canadian Press reported.
A recent LinkedIn job posting for a “multi-skilled journalist” at CTV News in Ottawa lists qualifications that span both digital and video journalism, combining what would typically be three jobs into one.
A significant number of the journalists writing for the national digital desk at CTV News are freelancers. Given the precarious nature of their work — with no benefits, vacation or sick pay — many are willing to put up with a punishing work environment for fear of losing their job.
Past and present national digital journalists at CTV told The Maple of morale issues, including but not limited to heightened workloads, massive turnover, long hours and low pay.
“I was never worried about getting laid off every year since I was so underpaid,” one former employee of nearly a decade told The Maple.
On the broadcast side, Bell’s announcement that they would be moving CP24 and BNN Bloomberg from downtown Toronto to their Scarborough site has resulted in a “central writing desk” that produces scripts for their suite of broadcast shows across the network.
Previously, each show, such as CTV National News, would employ its own producers and writers who would oftentimes pull double or triple duty writing scripts, approving correspondent packages, supervising graphics and editors, along with tape producing.
A former producer for CTV National News said they felt incredible pressure to finish on deadline for broadcast, often without the support of a full team.
An automated program known as “Overdrive” has allegedly replaced physical directors and assistant directors on some broadcasts.
The Maple understands CTV News offered to train employees replaced by the “Overdrive” system for three positions — one production automation director, one production automation “floater” and one producer.
It was not immediately clear to The Maple how many employees took up the offer.
“It’s always about ‘streamlining’ now,” according to a former editor who still has ties to the network. “Now editors are not really attached to specific shows anymore — just assigned segments on the day.”
The editor alleged that Bell’s “streamlining” drive is a euphemism for cuts under the leadership of Richard Gray, the vice-president of CTV News who took the helm after the LaFlamme debacle saw his predecessor, Michael Melling, shuffled to a different section of the company.
Melling’s LinkedIn now indicates he is a principal at StratOak Ltd., an advisory firm.
“I hope the public has noticed how the language of reports is changing and that online is all clickbait,” the editor alleged. “The scripting is a mess; checks and balances are gone.”
The result of all these changes, employees say, is that the quality of their work is suffering.
Apparent editorial decisions have also drawn public criticism.
CTV News has faced continuing scrutiny of its coverage of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, which was examined through multiple stories published in The Breach, along with a scathing indictment of CTV News Montreal’s alleged failure to protect one of their journalists, Iman Kassam, from a harassment campaign.
The Breach’s reporting alleged that CTV forbids the use of the word “Palestine,” suppresses critical stories about Israel, and operates with an “anti-Palestinian double standard” that saw far more Israeli voices featured compared to those of Palestinians.
CTV National News “aired racist stereotypes about Arabs, and allowed Israeli military officials to make false claims without pushback in its month of coverage since Oct. 7 [2023],” according to a story published by The Breach in November 2023.
Former CTV News Montreal journalist Iman Kassam alleged in an October 2024 piece for The Rover that the network had bowed to external pressure from the “HonestReporting Canada” pro-Israel group and deleted a segment about Wet’suwet’en protests that featured an interviewee wearing a keffiyah and holding a Palestinian flag.
Alex Cosh
In September, CTV National News, the network’s flagship broadcast news show, issued a public apology and dropped two employees after it aired an “altered clip” of Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre.
“People are still pointing fingers at one another over that,” a producer told The Maple, alleging that a loss of checks and balances in the sea of changes implemented by the network may have been to blame.
At the time of publication, CTV News had not responded to an emailed list of questions sent by The Maple.
Employees interviewed by The Maple for this story repeatedly asked how they are supposed to “do more with less,” when facing not only an incoming media-hostile Poilievre government, but also a Trump administration that relies on “alternative facts” to advance its agenda.
It begs the question: If the internal structure of one of Canada’s largest, “most trusted” and highly-awarded mainstream media outlets is allegedly so affected by corporate and revenue-driven decisions, is it prepared and properly resourced to cover another Trump presidency in the manner Canadians deserve?
Christy Somos is an award-winning journalist, editor and producer.
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