Loose lips sink NewsNet anchor

by Alan Findlay
The Toronto Sun

The joke's over.

CTV NewsNet anchor Avery Haines apologized yesterday after she was fired for making wisecracks about job equity while taping stories in the Toronto studio. The tape was broadcast across Canada.

"I'm sorry," she said yesterday during an interview with The Toronto Sun. "I was knocking myself and I wasn't taking aim at any group."

The gaffe happened Saturday morning after Haines flubbed the introduction to a story about struggling farmers. Haines then joked to other studio staffers about the stumble as the camera kept rolling.

"I kind of like the stuttering thing," she said. "It's like equal opportunity, right?

"We've got a stuttering newscaster. We've got the black, we've got the Asian, we've got the woman. I could be a lesbian, folk-dancing, black, woman stutterer."

Haines said she re-taped the story intro with no mistakes. Even so, the original version with her out-take joking was somehow broadcast nationwide later in the morning.

Haines twice read an apology to viewers.

She was called into her boss' office yesterday afternoon and fired. CTV management issued a brief statement saying they had no choice.

"The public must know that CTV takes this kind of behaviour as absolutely unacceptable," said CTV senior vice-president of news Henry Kowalski

"We think they (CTV) have dealt with the specific incident strongly," said Moy Tam, executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

But Tam said the comments would still have been offensive had they been made off camera and urged CTV to ensure such attitudes aren't part of the newsroom culture.

"If the remarks were made off the air, would she have stayed on?" Tam asked.

An off-camera staffer appeared to be joking with Haines during the taping. When asked whether that employee or the person who broadcast the wrong tape were being fired or disciplined, a CTV spokesman would only say that the matter is still under investigation.

Haines joined CTV as a probationary anchor just two months ago after an 11-year announcing job at CFRB radio.

About two-thirds of more than 3,500 respondents to a CANOE online poll yesterday said she should not have been fired.

'GOOD PERSON'

And Haines' former radio boss, Bill Carroll, said he was shocked and saddened by the firing.

"I know her to be a good person," said Carroll, CFRB's news director. "I know those comments don't reflect her views."

Haines said she'll be taking time out with her family before looking for another journalism job.

"I would hope a 20-second gaffe doesn't end a good career," she said. "But it's not really up to me."

January 18, 2000
Courtesy of the Toronto Sun