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Thursday, May 30, 2013

St. Louis Anchor Larry Conners Sues KMOV

Larry Conners
The saga of former KMOV-TV (Channel 4) news anchor Larry Conners just got a whole lot more complicated.

Since his firing, his attorneys have filed a formal discrimination complaint with the Missouri Human Rights Commission alleging that his bosses terminated him in retaliation for a dispute he had with the station in 2010 regarding his salary. In that legal battle, Conners writes in the complaint, he had alleged that KMOV was unfairly paying him less than his co-prime anchor, Vickie Newton, "an African-American female; I claimed that I received less compensation than Newtown because of my race and gender," according to riverfronttimes.com.

Since the resulting arbitration against KMOV and parent company Belo concluded in April 2012, Conners alleges in the new complaint, his bosses have treated him differently -- eventually leading to his firing this month.

The accusations in this formal complaint, sent out by his attorneys this morning, come as quite a surprise just weeks after the Conners controversy erupted.

Two weeks ago, Conners speculated on his Facebook page whether the IRS had targeted him in response to an April 2012 interview he did with President Obama. He later read a statement on-air admitting he had issues with the IRS several years prior and said that his views were his own.

Soon after, he was taken off the air temporarily -- and then fired.

Mark Pimentel, KMOV's president and general manager, said the firing was because Conners had violated the journalistic standards of the news organization by taking a stance on a national political story.


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