Former WHO anchor Sonya Heitshusen was forced out due to age, attorney says as trial begins

All Sonya Heitshusen wanted, her attorneys say, was to be able to compete for her job on a level playing field with her colleagues.

The longtime TV journalist and news anchor, who spent 17 years on the air for WHO-13 in Des Moines, is suing her former employer, accusing station leadership of ending her employment out of bias against putting older women in front of the camera.

During opening statements of her trial Tuesday, her attorney, Tom Newkirk, told jurors that Heitshusen was an "award-winning, proven-ratings employee" but, at age 53, no longer matched what her superiors were looking for when she was let go in 2020.

Newkirk said WHO ignored its own employment policies and years of stellar employee reviews to target Heitshusen for her age and gender. When considering who to include in a stationwide reduction in force, the company didn't even consider most of Heitshusen's male or younger female colleagues, he said, only looking to Heitshusen and several other women a few years behind her to make the needed cuts.

Heitshusen, now Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand's spokesperson, was one of eight employees laid off after Nexstar Media acquired WHO in 2019. But while the mandate to cut costs and workforce came from the new owners, Newkirk said, the company prides itself on absorbing local business models and executives into its system. The bias Heitshusen perceived against older female talent, he argued, was entirely homegrown.

"If the local station believes younger is better in front of the camera, then Nexstar is going to absorb that stereotype and apply it," he said.

He also accused the company of going out of its way to hide news of the impending layoff from Heitshusen.

"The evidence will show they didn’t want to ask her to take another job or take a pay cut, because they were afraid she’d say yes," he said.

Defense: High pay, job duties explain layoff

Attorney Chris Hoyme, representing the station and its management, didn't try to argue Heitshusen was fired for wrongdoing or poor performance. She was, he said, "a very good anchor and reporter," as reflected in her performance reviews.

But Heitshusen also was the third-highest-paid newsroom employee, Hoyme said. In her final years with WHO, she worked as co-anchor of the 4 and 5 p.m. broadcasts, but not the "prime time" 6 or 10 p.m. shows. Those facts made her an obvious choice when the directive came down from Nexstar to cut costs, he contended.

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"Ms. Heitshusen was recommended to be part of the reduction in force because of those two reasons: Her high compensation and the fact that (station General Manager Bobby Totsch) considered her to be an extra anchor who was not a dedicated anchor on the prime 6 and 10 newscasts," Hoyme said.

He also said Heitshusen received exactly the 120 days notice of her termination that she had negotiated in her contract, and that she rebuffed multiple offers to help her find a new position at another Nexstar station.

"This difficult decision was not focused on performance, experience and qualifications," he said. "All the news anchors were good performers and qualified for their positions. Ultimately, Sonya Heitshusen was chosen to be part of a reduction in force along with seven other employees within the station."

The trial is expected to continue all week and into next week, with testimony expected from Heitshusen, Totsch and News Director Rod Peterson.

Several current WHO employees are expected to testify on Heitshusen's behalf, including former co-anchor Erin Kiernan, whom the station sought before trial to block from testifying "regarding her belief that she has been treated less favorably than male employees at times." The judge ruled Kiernan's testimony may be admissible and rejected the station's request.

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William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Des Moines WHO 13 news anchor's discrimination lawsuit trial begins