Discrimination suit by female journalists could send a message to TV news companies

It’s no secret that female TV journalists are often held to different standards than male TV journalists when it comes to aging and their on-camera physical appearance. Male TV journalists are allowed to have gray/white hair, bald spots, jowls, and lots of wrinkles — all visible signs of aging that can kill job opportunities for female TV journalists. It’s extremely rare to see employed female TV journalists who let their natural gray/white hair show. This gender double standard of physical aging might seem superficial, but it can have far-reaching and detrimental consequences for female TV journalists, particularly those over the age of 40.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 prohibits employment discrimination against people over the age of 40. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, sex, religion, color, or national origin.

More female TV journalists are standing up for their legal rights and demanding that employers value a woman’s years of experience in the same way that a man’s years of experience are valued. Five women who have taken legal action for this cause are Roma Torre, Kristen Shaughnessy, Jeanine Ramirez, Vivian Lee, and Amanda Farinacci — all longtime employees of NY1, a 24-hour local cable news channel available on the Spectrum cable system in New York City. In June, the five women filed an age/gender discrimination lawsuit against Charter Communications, owner of Spectrum. The plaintiffs allege that their work hours have been reduced and have been handed over to employees who are men or younger women.

Torre, 61, has been with NY1 since it launched in 1992, under then-owner Time Warner Cable, and she is described in the lawsuit as NY1’s “first on-air ‘talent.’” Shaughnessy, 50, has been with NY1 since 1995. Ramirez, 49, has been a NY1 employee since 1996. Lee, 44, joined NY1 in 2008. Farinacci, 40, has worked for NY1 since 2000.

“We take these allegations seriously and as we complete our thorough review, we have not found any merit to them,” Charter Communications spokesperson Maureen Huff commented in a statement. “It should be noted that they are all still also gainfully employed and on air regularly. NY1 is a respectful and fair workplace, and we’re committed to providing a work environment in which all our employees are valued and empowered. We are proud that at NY1, 57 percent of our on-air talent are women, 55 percent of our on-air talent are over the age of 40, and 25 percent of our on-air talent are women over 40.”

However, the plaintiffs and their attorneys have said in media interviews that those statistics are misleading because the core issue of the lawsuits is that NY1 has allegedly reduced the number of work hours for female on-air talent who are over the age of 40(specifically, the plaintiffs), compared to NY1's on-air talent who aren't women over 40.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed in Manhattan federal court, all five plaintiffs have won journalism awards, received good performance reviews from supervisors, and fulfilled various duties at NY1, including on-scene reporting, newscasting, and anchoring/hosting programs. Even though Torre is NY1’s longest-serving on-air employee, the lawsuit alleges that she is paid less than several of NY1’s male on-air employees who have less experience than she does. (The lawsuit did not name specific salaries.)

The lawsuit and several news reports about the case have noted that NY1 anchor Pat Kiernan — a male staffer who joined NY1 in 1997, and who turns 51 years old this year — has been heavily promoted to become NY1’s biggest star. He currently anchors Mornings on 1, a three-hour, Monday-through-Friday show that launched in 2017 with a fancy newsroom studio that cost millions, according to the lawsuit. That same year, his 20th anniversary with NY1 was significantly celebrated on the air, while NY1 had no such celebration for Torre’s 25th anniversary. In addition, NY1 has allowed Kiernan to build up an extensive résumé as an actor, with cameos in major movies and TV shows, where he usually plays a version of himself. He has the most acting credits out of all the NY1 staffers.

The Women’s Media Center Status of Women in U.S. Media 2019 report has sobering statistics that illustrate the gender disparity in how female employees are treated in newsrooms compared to their male counterparts. Even though women are more than half of the U.S. population, men continue to dominate U.S. newsrooms. According to the American Society of News Editors, local TV news staffs in the United States are, on average, 56 percent male. And a 2017 Radio Television Digital News Association/Hofstra University Newsroom Survey found that in U.S. TV news organizations, 66 percent of news directors are men.

Meanwhile, in a separate age/gender discrimination lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court in July, former NY1 fill-in reporters Michelle Greenstein and Thalia Perez are claiming that NY1 shut them out of employment opportunities because of Greenstein’s and Perez’s ages and pregnancies, and instead gave those opportunities to men or younger women. According to the lawsuit, Greenstein and Perez were fired by NY1 when Greenstein was 40 and Perez was 43. Greenstein’s NY1 employment lasted from 2013 to 2017, while Perez worked at NY1 from 2015 to 2017, when she was fired while she was pregnant.

Charter spokesperson Huff added, “As we’ve said, we take these kinds of allegations seriously, but this lawsuit has no merit. These two women only provided fill-in work. A few years ago, we decided to employ more full-time on-air employees. At that time, we no longer had a need to call them for shifts. Our records show that neither Michelle nor Thalia applied for any open position.”

Wigdor LLP, a New York City-based law firm, is representing all of these plaintiffs in their lawsuits against NY1. Neither lawsuit requests specific monetary damages, but the plaintiffs are asking for jury trials.

Since the five-plaintiff lawsuit was filed, several prominent figures have spoken out to voice their support for the plaintiffs, including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Maria Shriver, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and New York City Women’s Council Caucus Co-Chairs Margaret Chin and Carlina Rivera. The plaintiffs also have their own Twitter account called Unseen on TV, where they’ve been tweeting about public responses to the case.

In July, Mayor de Blasio tweeted, “Shame on NY1,” in response to Torre being shut out of anchoring NY1’s live coverage of the World Cup parade in New York for the U.S. Women’s National Team — anchoring duties that she had for the parade in 2015 and requested again this year. Torre ended up covering the 2019 parade after the event happened. It was at the 2019 parade that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the state’s equal-pay legislation.

New Owner, New Work Culture

In 2016, Charter acquired Time Warner Cable, which owned NY1, and changed the cable company’s name to Spectrum and NY1’s official name to Spectrum News NY1. Spectrum News NY1 then underwent a major staff overhaul in 2017, including numerous layoffs, as well as several new hires.

Although the women in the five-plaintiff lawsuit survived the layoffs, the lawsuit alleges that after Charter’s takeover, the plaintiffs had their on-air hours reduced without their consent, and they were replaced in their time slots by younger, less-experienced employees. The lawsuit also alleges that NY1’s longtime male on-air staffers with comparable years of experience have not had their hours reduced and have not been replaced by younger, less-experienced employees.

A typical discrimination lawsuit for TV journalists usually involves one plaintiff. The NY1 lawsuits could be groundbreaking because they each involve multiple plaintiffs. The suit with the five plaintiffs is also unusual because all of the plaintiffs were (and, as of this writing, still are) employed by the defendant company at the time the lawsuit was filed. In most cases of a female TV journalist suing an employer for gender/age discrimination, the lawsuit was filed after she left the company. That’s what happened with former NY1 video journalist Marisol Seda-Lourido, who filed an age/gender discrimination lawsuit against Charter in November 2018. The case went into private arbitration.

The NY1 five-plaintiff lawsuit accuses two people of being mainly responsible for the alleged age/gender discrimination: Anthony Proia and Melissa Rabinovich. Proia was NY1’s news director from January 2017 to June 2019. (He announced his resignation in May.) Proia’s work experience includes stints as a producer and an executive producer at NY1 from 2000 to 2006. Rabinovich, a NY1 employee since 1998, rose through the producer ranks and became NY1’s assistant news director in December 2017.

Proia could not be reached for comment. Rabinovich did not respond to requests for comment.

Rabinovich is named in the lawsuits as the chief instigator of a NY1 work environment that allegedly began to sideline older female journalists after Charter took ownership. According to the five-plaintiff lawsuit, the plaintiffs separately expressed their concerns about their reduced work hours to various supervisors, including Proia and Rabinovich, but the supervisors were allegedly dismissive. The lawsuit also claims that when Ramirez had an opportunity to do a cameo in a Spike Lee movie in 2018, Rabinovich ignored her request to take the job. Considering all the acting jobs that NY1 anchor Kiernan has had during his NY1 tenure, NY1 might come under scrutiny over how a male employee is allowed to take these outside job opportunities, compared to a female employee.

Greenstein and Perez’s lawsuit accuses Rabinovich of practicing illegal discrimination against women who have pregnancy issues. The lawsuit alleges that after Rabinovich found out that Perez was pregnant, Rabinovich eliminated opportunities for Perez, and made inappropriate comments in the workplace about Perez’s pregnant body. Greenstein claims that after Rabinovich demanded that Greenstein return to work after five weeks of maternity leave in 2017, Rabinovich prevented Greenstein from getting a full-time position, and allegedly told Greenstein: “I did not think you could handle the flexibility of hours because you’re a new mom and you have a lot going on . . . you should stay home and enjoy time with your baby.” Greenstein and Perez claim that the younger women who were favored by Rabinovich were women with no children.

In a Wigdor announcement about the Greenstein/Perez lawsuit, Greenstein commented in a prepared statement: “As a new mother, being told that my decision to have children would render me disposable to NY1 was extremely demoralizing. I had previously feared retribution for speaking up about this, but seeing the five current anchors share similar stories of gender and age discrimination, it gave me the strength and motivation to come forward with my experience.”

Jeanine Ramirez Speaks Out

The five-plaintiff lawsuit alleges that NY1’s plans to push aside the plaintiffs have gone as far as replacing each plaintiff in key time slots with a younger woman from the same ethnicity/race and with similar physical features as the older woman. The younger women’s ages range from mid-20s to late 30s.

In its defense, Charter might point to longtime NY1 anchor Cheryl Wills, who has been with NY1 since 1992. After Charter took over NY1, Wills’ on-air hours increased, as the star of two shows: In Focus With Cheryl Wills (a 30-minute Sunday public-affairs program) and NY1 Live at Ten, a 60-minute weeknight newscast with Wills as anchor.

However, the plaintiffs must prove that they — not the entire group of female NY1 employees — were the victims of gender/age discrimination. In other words, just because some NY1 female employees over the age of 40 might have had career advancements at NY1 after Charter’s takeover, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s impossible for other female NY1 employees over the age of 40 to have the opposite experience.

 “On television, appearance really matters,” Ramirez says of the gender disparity in how female and male TV journalists are judged by their age and physical appearance. “Women, in particular, [are expected to be] thin and attractive, while the men, they celebrate a 50th birthday … or 45 years on the air. And with a woman, they would never do that, because it shows how old they are.”

Ramirez has observed sexist practices that local TV stations often have for news anchors: “They tend to change out the women and keep the man there … There’s an expiration date for the woman sitting next to him.”

Ramirez believes that filing the complaint while still employed at NY1 sends a strong message. “Do I just quit, and then I just walk away and find myself another job?” she said. “What does that do? So, I change my career, or I change a job? But it allows the practice to continue to NY1 … It almost lets them get away with it and continue their discriminatory practices.”

She adds, “It has been amazing to see how many people have come forward with support … Other people in television news — women who say, ‘I’m so glad you’re calling this out, because this is happening to me or [someone I know].’ We’ve gotten support from people in different industries who say that. Ageism is real.”

Attorneys traditionally advise clients involved in lawsuits not to talk to the media about the lawsuits while the litigation is pending. But, Ramirez explains, “We’re media professionals, and the best way to get the message out is to allow the public to hear it through the media.”

Lessons Learned From Christine Craft

In 1982, Christine Craft became the first female TV journalist in the United States to sue an employer for gender discrimination. She claimed that KMBC-TV — the ABC affiliate in Kansas City, Missouri — wanted to demote her from being an anchor to being a reporter, because KMBC bosses in 1981 allegedly decided that she was too old (she was 36 at the time), unattractive, and not deferential enough to men. Instead of taking the demotion, Craft left KMBC in 1981, after nine months on the job, and filed a $3.5 million lawsuit against KMBC’s then-owner, Metromedia. The claims in the lawsuit were gender discrimination, violation of federal pay laws, and fraud. Among the allegations were that KMBC forced Craft to undergo a makeover for her physical appearance, even though Craft says KMBC bosses told her at the time she was hired that she would not be required to have that type of makeover.

Craft ultimately lost her equal-pay and gender discrimination claims. She initially won on the fraud charge, but the $500,000 award was thrown out because the judge determined that the jury had been affected by publicity about the case. A second trial resulted in a $325,000 award, but the verdict was overturned on appeal.

Even though Craft lost her case, she told Women’s Media Center that she has “no regrets.” She believes that her lawsuit served as a warning to newsroom bosses and helped improve job opportunities for female TV newscasters, particularly those over the age of 40. When she first filed the lawsuit in 1982, Craft says, “There were no women in the United States over the age of 40 anchoring a local [TV] newscast, except for Ann Bishop. Now, there are lots of women over 40 in TV news, I’m happy to say.”

In the years since her lawsuit, Craft, continued to work in TV news, but she also branched out to becoming a public speaker and author. In her 50s, she became an attorney specializing in discrimination cases.

“The problems are still the same,” Craft says of discrimination against women in TV news. Women’s career lifespans in TV news have “maybe gotten an additional 10 years,” but older women in TV news are still more likely than their male counterparts to be pushed out of their jobs because of their age, Craft observes. She believes that progress can’t be made unless people are brave enough to “call out discrimination.” Craft says that employers who perpetuate illegal discrimination like to assume that “nobody will speak out,” and these toxic bosses hate the possibility of being exposed in a lawsuit.

Having been through the ups and downs of her groundbreaking discrimination lawsuit, Craft has this final piece of advice for the plaintiffs: “You have to steel yourself with the knowledge that your battle is worth fighting, no matter how it turns out.”

Update: After a NY1/Charter spokesperson did not respond to Women's Media Center's requests for comment about the lawsuits by our deadline, a Charter spokesperson provided a statement after this article was posted.