Posted on: Friday, January 24, 2003
News anchor backs KHON dismissal
By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer
KHON news anchor Joe Moore sat behind a microphone yesterday afternoon — but this time as a witness in federal court in a lawsuit brought by former Channel 2 reporter Mary Zanakis, who claims the television station improperly demoted and then fired her after she took maternity leave in 1999.
Zanakis, who now works for KITV, is asking to be reinstated and to be paid lost wages of about $770,000.
Moore said that after Zanakis filed her lawsuit, alleging the station violated her rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act, he got a short note from her thanking him that his name did not appear on a list of potential witnesses "who in her words were out to trash her."
Moore said that he sent a letter back to Zanakis and told her he wasn't aware she intended to take the matter to court but that he "couldn't sit by and let her ruin the careers" of former station general manager Kent Baker and then-news director Jim McCoy by bringing "allegations that are false" against them.
Baker and McCoy contend that Zanakis was fired because the quality of her work had slipped after 18 years at the station and because she was causing tension on the set with then-morning news show anchor Leslie Wilcox.
Moore said he told Zanakis he was going to call the TV station's lawyer and offer to testify at her trial and would offer his professional opinion of her work, one that would not be flattering.
True to his word, when he was asked yesterday to compare the reporting skills of Channel 2 investigative reporter Tina Shelton to those of Zanakis, Moore used a sports analogy saying it would be like comparing "an NFL all-pro and a high school player."
He said he thought Zanakis did well at softer news and feature stories but had a difficult time with complex, hard news stories.
Moore said because he worked late into the night, he didn't watch KHON's morning news show regularly but began to do so after his son was born in 1998. He said that while the tension on the set might not be apparent to the average viewer, it was to him.
When Zanakis, who was then the health reporter, would finish a segment, she would turn to Wilcox and not say anything, creating an awkward pause.
Moore said he would think to himself: "This is not good."
Bruce Voss, the lawyer for KHON's parent company Emmis Communications Corp., asked Moore if Zanakis should have been disappointed when she returned from maternity leave and was reassigned to general assignment.
"General assignment is the meat and potatoes of what we do," Moore said. "If we didn't have general assignment reporters, we wouldn't have much of a newscast."
Nonetheless, Moore said he noticed a great difference in Zanakis' work when she returned and began working as a general assignment reporter.
"It was clear to me that her heart was not in it. I would describe it as just going through the motions," Moore said.
In response to questions from her lawyer, Zanakis said that she went to see Baker only once to talk about problems on the set with Wilcox and that Baker never sought her out.
"I never went to McCoy even once to complain about anything, and McCoy never came to me even once," Zanakis added. "No one ever came to me, not even Leslie (Wilcox). They never once came to me and said there was a problem.
"I don't doubt (Wilcox) went to McCoy, but she never talked to me and he never talked to me," Zanakis said.
In addition, no one at KHON ever talked to her about a need to improve her reporting skills, Zanakis said.
Asked by Voss if she thought she was doing a good job, Zanakis shot back: "I know I was doing a good job."
Asked about Moore's assessment that she was just going through the motions in the weeks before she was fired, Zanakis said: "Today is the first time I ever heard it, two years after the lawsuit was filed."
The trial is in the second week in U.S. District Judge David Ezra's courtroom. Closing arguments are scheduled for today.
