WWeek is calling it a bombshell. My first reaction was:
eep.
Details are coming out from former KOIN ND Jeff Alan's lawsuit against the station, which was filed in April. In it, he claims that Ed Whelan's firing was discriminatory, and so was his own:
At a July 2007 meeting in Portland, the lawsuit claims that Jason Elkin, CEO of NVT [New Vision Television], insisted that Whelan be fired as a condition of NVT buying the station. Alan and [then-KOIN owner] Montecito President Sandra Benton objected, the lawsuit says, because Whelan "was a minority, was older and had recovered from a stroke." But the lawsuit says Elkin "angrily insisted."
At the same meeting, the lawsuit says that Elkin asked Alan, then 54, whether he was too old for his job, and made one other disparaging remark about Alan's age.
Whelan was fired August 20, 2007, as we reported here first (in fact, much of KOIN's newsroom learned of the firing from OMI rather than its own management).
But it doesn't end there:
[New KOIN GM] Chris Sehring ... told Alan to check out a resume tape from prospective news reporter Kacey Montoya, according to the lawsuit. Sehring told Alan that they "would probably be forced to hire her," the lawsuit says.
Alan objected to hiring Montoya on two grounds, the lawsuit says. First, he believed she was unqualified. And second, according to the lawsuit, "some quick internet searches" revealed that Montoya appeared "in inappropriate material" under the names Kacey Aliece and Kacey Bytheway.
Montoya told WWeek she had been a swimsuit model before becoming a reporter and doesn't regard the photos as erotica. She told WWeek, "I never posed in any pictures with the intent that they would be put on an erotica site. This is not the kind of modeling that I did, and I would like it if you made that perfectly clear." According to the lawsuit, both Alan and former KOINer Theresa Stedman objected to both Montoya's hiring and her salary, described as at a higher rate than they had approved. Current KOIN ND Lynn Heider is standing by Montoya.
Alan was fired in January 2008:
The lawsuit ... claims Alan was fired due to age discrimination, out of retaliation for opposing Montoya's hiring, and out of retaliation for acting as a whistleblower on Whelan's firing.
(FYI, Alan was not my source on the Whelan story.)
Alan wants his old job back plus $2.5M for economic damages and pain and suffering. KOIN owner NVT and its CEO Elkin are named as defendants in the suit.
Some thoughts on all this:
First, can lawsuits from Stedman and Whelan be far behind?
Second, for once the innuendos that accompany virtually every pretty young woman into this market on this website turned out to be at least a teeny bit true. When Montoya came on at KOIN, someone in the comments outed her "Kacey Bytheway" identity, or whatever you want to call it--I have no idea if that was her alias or one that whoever bought the photos gave her Bytheway is her given name; Montoya is her alias.
Why didn't I follow up? I'm not kidding when I say every single good-looking young woman who comes into this market is assailed with "she slept her way into her job" crap on this website. You don't see it because I delete it; sexual innuendo is about the only thing I delete before it sees the light of day. Why I didn't delete that comment, I dunno.
I read this post and I shake my head in disgust. Where is the professionalism?