Last week, CTV news anchor Lisa LaFlamme posted this to her Twitter feed:
The backlash to her firing was instant. In short, many thought her firing from CTV News was unwarranted and was a sure sign of sexism and ageism. And what didn’t help was a report that her age and letting her hair go grey were factors in her firing.
Clearly this blowback was so epic that Bell Media, the owners of CTV had to come out and say something:
While this statement says the right things, nobody really bought into it. And it also doesn’t help that Bell Media has a history of mass firings. Take this from last year as an example. Thus anything that they say will be taken as suspect by many.
But I suspect things are about to get worse for Bell Media based on this:
Danielle Graham is, or was best known for her work on CTV’s etalk talk show. But if you read her statement, and compare it to LaFlamme’s video, there’s a lot of similarities. Enough similarities that it makes me say that there needs to be questions to be asked about how Bell Media treats women. And that should be done by an external party. Personally, what I would like to see Bell Media hauled in front of a Parliamentary committee to answer some questions. But I don’t see that happening. However the bad press that this is generating is going to put Bell Media in a position where they are very uncomfortable and will have to have to address how they treat women in general, and women of a certain age in public. And on top of that, I would not at all be surprised if more women come forward with accusations of mistreatment by Bell Media, or being let go by Bell Media because of a “business decision”. On top of that, Bell Media is owned by Bell Canada Enterprises. How must the people at HQ feel about this? And will they take action to address this if Bell Media doesn’t? That’s a good question.
In any case, Bell Media has some questions to answer about how they treat women. And they need to answer those questions immediately.
Blubrry Partners with Rev
Posted in Commentary with tags Bulbrry, Rev on August 22, 2022 by itnerdBlubrry is introducing a new web-based podcast player that uses transcription products integrated with Rev. This will provide Blubrry podcasters with closed captioning, as well as transcriptions for inclusiveness – an industry first.
There’s more to podcasting than just audio. Content should be available for everyone in whatever format they desire or require. We are excited to offer an accessible podcast audio player –a first in podcasting – with our new transcription partner, Rev, the No. 1 speech-to-text service in the world.
Transcriptions from Rev are integrated into the publishing system and the player.
Until Sept. 15, 2022, all Blubrry Hosting customers may try this for free. Podcasters can add the service for $10 a month with a translation limit equal to their media storage level.
Users will not have to leave the Blubrry publishing or PowerPress platforms, as transcripts are integrated into the podcast publishing process.
Rev’s dedication to accessibility, productivity and reliability is why it is the premier speech-to-text service in the world. The combination of automation and skilled professionals ensures that podcasters will always get the best transcription possible.
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