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| 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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