Company also accused of age and gender discrimination
A former San Diego TV news anchor has filed a lawsuit against the station she worked for, accusing her ex-employer of unequal pay practices, age and gender discrimination and whistleblower retaliation.
Sandra Maas, formerly with KUSI-TV, alleged that McKinnon Broadcasting Co. violated the state’s Equal Pay Act by paying her $80,000 less per year than what her co-anchor.
While the 60-year-old performed substantially similar work to Allen Denton when the pair anchored the station’s afternoon and evening news broadcast for six years, she got less per year, said Maas’s lawyer Josh Gruenberg. He also claimed that both broadcasters had decades of experience.
“We believe there is no legal or reasonable justification for paying Mr. Denton more,” Gruenberg said, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. “He was a hell of a news anchor, but so was Ms. Maas. They sat side by side for a number of years and did excellent work.”
Maas joined KUSI in 2004 as a co-anchor. In 2007, she began hosting the daily “Inside San Diego” program. Mass was promoted to co-anchor of newscasts at 5, 6 and 10 p.m. in 2010, and in 2016 produced a weekly “Healthy Living” segment.
However, it was only in 2017 that she started suspecting a pay differential, and a former manager confirmed that she was making at least $80,000 less than the $240,000 annual income by Denton. Mass raised this issue during contract negotiations, asking that her pay be on par with...
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