Station Static

Illustration By: Jeffrey Bouchard

A former KYW Newsradio anchor claims bias against women.

by Angelina Sciolla

On May 16 , KYW radio news anchor Elaine Keno was at Independence Mall East for yet another weekend shift. Leaving the building briefly without her key, she says she was unable to get back in, denied access by the guard at the door.

Following a series of contentious exchanges between Keno and management over pay, hours and denied promotions — all itemized in a lawsuit Keno filed against the station on May 18 — KYW Newsradio program director Steve Butler decided to end the argument once and for all by firing her on May 25. But for Keno, the fight was just beginning.

It's clear Keno, 46, wants her story to be told, but like the veteran reporter she is, she can't help but want a hand in it. She's alternately indicting and discreet about the case. Keno says her firing was prompted by the complaint but cites a precedent that she says should have protected her from such a fate.

"They didn't do that to Beverly Williams," Keno argues in that familiar resonant voice, now tinged with indignation. Williams, a television news anchor, slapped KYW with an age-race-sex discrimination suit but continued to work until June 2003. Her case was settled that month for an undisclosed amount, and Williams went on to host a magazine-style show.

KYW isn't talking, including about their grounds for firing Keno. Still, the charges made by both women are similar, and if Keno's case ends up going to trial in February, it could mean more bad news for KYW and parent company Infinity Broadcasting.

Keno, who in 2002 won the Pennsylvania Associated Press Broadcasters Award for Best Regularly Scheduled Newscast, had been at 1060 AM since 1995 and before that, during the late 1980s. When she returned to Philadelphia from Miami, she seemed to be in good position for advancement, given her time served in two major radio news markets.

"When I came back to KYW," she says, "I was one of only six full-time female anchors and the only woman anchoring business news."

She claims the glass ceiling was hindering her and some of her unnamed female colleagues — particularly those "of a certain age." Keno describes a systematic attempt by KYW to marginalize female reporters, whether by not appointing them to bureau positions or by denying them news cars to get to an assignment. Such treatment, she says, is pervasive in the radio news business. She says part of the reason she filed the complaint was to shed light on the issue, and she hopes her actions will reverberate throughout the industry.

"KYW doesn't do anything different than another station. When a woman filed a report, there was always something wrong with it," Keno says. "Women had to pull teeth to get the good assignments. Look at it this way: No woman has ever retired from KYW Newsradio."

Keno's suit says, among other things, that her male colleagues were paid more and offered more desirable work shifts. This also went for women reporters who were younger and, Keno claims, less experienced. Williams, in her suit, also claimed she lost plum anchor time to thirtysomething female faces.

As far as the gender gap is concerned, however, radio industry statistics are not striking enough to support or refute Keno's claims. Maria Brennan, executive director of American Women in Radio and Television, an advocacy organization for women in electronic journalism, says "there is no trending one way or the other."

"You hear both things: that there is no differentiation at station X or Y in regard to how women fare, and then you hear that there is a differentiation," Brennan explains. "The general rule is that there is no general rule," except in certain circumstances, she says.

"By the end of 2003," Brennan adds, "only 13.7 percent of the 10,000-plus radio stations in the country were managed by women."

While mum on many specifics of her case, Keno does not hesitate to mention her nemesis at KYW: Steve Butler. Named as a defendant, Butler referred inquiries to General Manager David Yadgaroff, who said, "We responded to her complaint and will defend our case in court."

Among the charges is Keno's claim that Butler denied her the opportunity to apply for a morning-drive shift. And while Keno says she was making "top of scale" wages (in excess of $70,000 a year), she also says she was making less money than her male counterparts.

"I will prove that eventually," she says.

The complaint also indicates that Keno was made to work eight-hour-a-day weekend shifts while male anchors worked five-hour-a-day weekday shifts, and that she was forced to take a pay cut for a shift change, something to which her colleagues were not subjected. (Keno's lawyers, Joseph Ryan and Elizabeth Lubker, would not respond to requests for comment on the salary discrepancies or whether Keno, a member of AFTRA, used the power of the broadcasters union to file a grievance with the station before taking legal action.)

The complaint — which demands a roughly six-figure sum, including back pay and punitive damages — also charges discrimination based on the Americans with Disabilities Act. In the late 1990s, Keno was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and subsequently told Butler. She claims he frequently used this against her, cutting her hours and treating her "based on stereotypes rather than an evaluation of [her] ability."

Keno maintains her condition did not impair her capacity or desire to work.

"Bipolar disorder," says Ramiro Sanchez, a counselor in Girard Medical Center's Outpatient Services program, "is not considered a disability issue. In some cases there may be periods of psychotic episodes, but typically the condition does not interfere with work." This is also supported by ADA guidelines and several recent Supreme Court rulings.

No one at the station would offer demographic information, but a check of the 1060 AM Web site shows 19 full- or part-time anchors, 16 of whom are men. The news director, however, is Tracey Russell, a black woman. Keno calls that an anomaly.

A 2002 survey done by the Radio-Television News Directors Association indicates that the biggest opening for women in radio over the last two years has been the news director position. Anchor numbers have not moved much over the last 10 years — two of every five radio anchors are female — but it could also be because women are opting out of radio for the glamour and money of television, a medium in which women have advanced more rapidly. The average radio news anchor salary is $34,000 per year. Salaries for television anchors average twice that much. Or, it may just be the numbers on the dial. National Public Radio, the nation's most popular station, has produced some of radio's biggest female stars.

"My only experience is working for WHYY/NPR," says Marty Moss-Coane, host of WHYY's Radio Times, "but the philosophy I've observed in the last 20 years is that women have performed just as well as men in public radio. Look at some of the women who've come out of NPR, like Nina Totenberg and Cokie Roberts. Women have their fingerprints all over public radio."

Still, the sum of her claims, Keno hopes, will reveal a climate of bias against women in that industry, even if it exists primarily at for-profit stations. And, if the rosy outcome of Beverly Williams' suit is any indication, there's always television.