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Mettey Sues Univision for Wrongful Termination

Nov 18, 2008  •  Post A Comment

Jorge Mettey, former news director and vice president of news at Univision KMEX-TV 34 in Los Angeles, filed a lawsuit Monday against his former employer, claiming he was wrongfully terminated after allegedly being pressured to cover news sponsored by advertisers.
Mr. Mettey filed the suit Monday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif.
In court documents, Mr. Mettey alleges that KMEX wanted him to cover topics and individuals that would attract more advertising dollars to the station, particularly in his coverage of issues related to immigration.
He accuses Univision of pressuring him to interview specific individuals during his “Silla de Poder” (Power Seat) segment, which profiles Fortune 500 executives of interest to the Hispanic community. According to the filing, Mr. Mettey “refused to allow the sale of news content for such commercial purposes because he believed this was an unethical practice.”
Mr. Mettey also says the station spun his 2007 immigration-reform campaign into a citizenship and voter registration campaign in order to attract advertisers seeking votes from the Latino community.
In April 2007, Mr. Mettey was terminated for what he says was “his refusal to sell news content for commercial purposes on broadcast news segments and because of his political views regarding the immigration reform campaign,” according to documents.
Mr. Mettey, a Peabody Award-winning journalist, also alleges that Univision made it difficult for him to become re-employed by withholding some of his property used as evidence of achievement and spreading false information.
A Univision representative declined to comment on the suit.
(Updated: Added “allegedly” to first paragraph. 4:10 p.m.)

10 Comments

  1. Just another example on how the news organizations have lost their soul and the trust of the public. There was a time when the integraty of news organizations was hardly questioned. Now, thier fall of grace is a detrriment to the communities they intended to serve. The more news outlets there are the less credability esists. Thank god for the internet were the viewers have at least the oportunity to find information.

  2. This sounds like BS. Don’t believe everything a hack lawyer representing a disgruntled employee puts out there. It is usually wildly exagerrated at best.

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