Former Meteorologist Suing Scripps, WTMJ for Religious Discrimination

[Weeters 1805]

Former WTMJ meteorologist Scott Steele is suing E.W. Scripps, alleging that he was discriminated against on account of his Jewish faith.

 

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/2019/12/23/former-weather-anchor-scott-steele-accuses-wtmj-anti-semitism/2735751001/

 

In the court documents, Steele alleges that WTMJ management engaged in discriminatory practices against him, culminating in his contract expiring, at which point he alleges the company submitted fraudulent information to the EEOC, which was conducting an investigation on his behalf.

 

The TVNewsTalk On Your Side Investigators have obtained the entire complaint, you can download it here.

[mrschimpf 2050]

This pretty much seemed inevitable when you have a conservative talk radio station mix with a television station that seems stuck permanently in a moreass where all the bright people flee for anywhere else having to deal with the senior staff, the station is trying to deal with changing from being able to schmooze corporate a few blocks away to it now being just another outpost, and the weather department is incredibly resistant to any kind of change.

 

I was never much of a 'fan' of Scott I can admit (I'm more of a fan of news folks that just report the facts than way too cheery folks), but he was a good guy, and the entire way they handled the transitions from John Malan and Mike Jacobs were both unmitigated disasters.

[LoadStar 363]

11 hours ago, mrschimpf said:

This pretty much seemed inevitable when you have a conservative talk radio station [...]

I don't think I would describe 620 as a conservative talk radio station. I mean, I get it, their two daytime hosts are talkers that lean conservative, but mornings and afternoons are news, and evenings were sports. (Now? I don't know what "WTMJ Nights" is even supposed to be. I don't know that they do either. But that's a change that happened after being bought from Scripps.)

[doublejman69 105]

On 12/26/2019 at 7:13 PM, mrschimpf said:

This pretty much seemed inevitable when you have a conservative talk radio station mix with a television station that seems stuck permanently in a moreass...

Wtmj radio had absolutely 0 percent influence on tmj4, Scripps had so little interest in running radio stations that the radio VP for Scripps at the time basically begged Scripps into selling the radio stations. 

 

It’s no secret that the mostly veteran staff at wtmj was highly paid and for many when renewal time came a Scripps contract would never come close to a Journal contract.  Scripps is hiring 22 year old mmj’s even in its largest markets that are making less than photojournalists that have been at the station for 30-35 years. Many times managers will cook up some bad performance reviews if they want to push out or demoted staffers.

 

If the company sent out fraudulent documents to the EEOC that is obviously very concerning. Scripps has people in corporate that basically help the local stations in hiring and retaining people. With Cincy having such a large role in decision making at the local level if there is any wrong doing, it’s going to be difficult for Scripps to blame it all on a rogue staffer or two.

[DirtyHarry 718]

On 12/25/2019 at 6:29 PM, Weeters said:

Former WTMJ meteorologist Scott Steele is suing E.W. Scripps, alleging that he was discriminated against on account of his Jewish faith.

 

 

In my experience, people don't care what you are if you're not a jerk. But if you're a jerk, they'll often use what you are against you. In other words, Scott Steele was not facing religious descrimination, he was most likely facing jerk discrimination. That is, if any of this even happened.

[Megatron81 179]

I wouldn't be surprised if this gets settled out of court just my opinion.