Sonya Heitshusen takes the stand in age discrimination trial against WHO-13, Nexstar

Sonya Heitshusen says she knew right away that her termination was not on the level.

The veteran WHO-13 news anchor was told April 3, 2020, that the station where she'd worked for 17 years was ending her contract. Her bosses offered to help her land a new job with a sister station, or to call her back when new jobs opened, she says. News Director Rod Peterson even suggested there might be a job for her then, working on the station's website — but with a catch.

"He said it doesn’t pay the same, and nothing on air, nothing on camera. And when I heard that, I knew, it was like a punch to the gut," Heitshusen testified this week in Polk County Court. "It meant I was good enough to work behind the scenes, I was good enough to work on the web, but we don’t want you in front of the camera."

At 52, Heitshusen was the oldest female anchor at WHO, where she'd built a reputation as a versatile journalist, covering both investigative stories and features. Now 56, she is suing WHO, parent company Nexstar Media, Peterson and General Manager Bobby Totsch, alleging age and gender discrimination. The case went to trial last week, and on Monday, Heitshusen took her turn on the witness stand.

More: Sonya Heitshusen says WHO TV discriminated against her. What to know as her case goes to trial

In at-times tearful testimony, Heitshusen spoke about her love for her job, the sense of purpose she'd lost when it was gone, and the signs she'd seen even before her termination that women were not on a level playing field with men. She said they included station management running promotions to celebrate awards for male, but not female, reporters and allowing men but not women to promote their side jobs on the air.

"Men are often allowed to age on television, get gray hair, maybe be a little heavier than they were at 20. Women aren’t afforded that luxury," she testified. "Women are expected to be not only professional, but beautiful and young and glamorous."

Multiple references to age, appearance

Heitshusen testified that Peterson, her direct supervisor, had a pattern of making comments about her age and weight even before she was let go.

In one meeting, when she and co-anchor Erin Kiernan were asking for more resources for a segment about exercise, Peterson allegedly told them "well, at least you're losing weight." At another staff meeting after Heitshusen had missed work due to a reaction to the shingles vaccine, Peterson reportedly told younger workers not to worry "because you’re not of Sonya’s advanced age."

"You are trying to outrun the hands of time, you’re doing everything you can to keep a youthful appearance," Heitshusen said. "... What that said to me was, you’re at the age now where you’re on the radar, where we’re looking at how old you are and whether you can continue on and keep on outrunning the hands of time."

Erin Kiernan also describes unequal treatment

Heitshusen's longtime friend Kiernan, who still works for WHO, also testified, recounting the meeting where Peterson commented on their weight. She shared Heitshusen's view that the station was doling out recognition and other perks unevenly.

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"Several years ago, there were promos running for some of my male colleagues’ awards, and in the same timeframe and even same organization that bestows these awards, I had won awards, Sonya had won awards, and there were not promos running for what we had earned," Kiernan said.

She described Heitshusen as one of the smartest, hardest-working people in the newsroom, but testified that the two of them consistently got fewer resources, in terms of staff support and runtime, for their stories than male colleagues received.

Executives say layoff driven by business needs

Heitshusen's testimony came after the initial week of the trial focused mostly on station executives, who have argued Heitshusen was let go as part of a broader layoff based on her higher compensation and less-essential work duties than those of the other anchors. Her attorneys grilled Peterson and Totsch about her tenure at the station, its 2019 acquisition by Nexstar, the nation's largest owner of TV stations, and how the decision was made to end her contract.

Many of the questions revolved around a marketing plan Peterson forwarded to WHO news staff in 2017, which listed as one of the station's strengths its "hip young relatable talent." (A similar 2019 document omitted "young.") Peterson denied considering age as a factor in hiring and firing, and Totsch, who was hired as part of the Nexstar transition, called the document "a joke" that had no bearing on any of his decisions.

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Her attorneys also focused on a document produced by Peterson for Totsch, reviewing five news anchors being considered for the layoff, including photos and biographical details. The top four on the list were women, led by Heitshusen, and her attorneys argued the document falsely denigrated her work performance and relationships in the newsroom.

Totsch, on the stand, agreed that by the time he received that document, he had largely decided who would be included in the layoff, but denied pressuring Peterson to include false information to justify letting go of Heitshusen.

During cross-examination Monday, the station's lawyers pressed Heitshusen on why she hadn't sought any other media jobs after leaving WHO, including multiple openings at Des Moines' other broadcast news stations, WOI and KCCI. Since hired as spokesperson for the Iowa State Auditor's Office, she told them she had been expecting a callback to WHO as promised, and assumed her lawsuit meant the end of any path for her to return to TV news.

"I sacrificed a career that I loved in order to bring this to light," she said.

Execs deny retaliation for 2020 letter

Her attorneys also probed why Heitshusen was not called and offered other positions that opened at the station after her layoff. Peterson pointed to a letter Heitshusen sent to Nexstar officials in 2020 that, he said, denigrated her former coworkers and indicated she was not interested in working for him again.

That creates its own problem for the station, since Heitshusen's letter alleged sex and age discrimination and she now accuses the company of retaliating by refusing to offer her further jobs. Peterson, though, said he hadn't seen the letter directly, and denied knowing it had included discrimination claims.

"She didn’t want to work for us. She indicated she didn’t," he said. "Why would we call someone who didn’t want to work for us?"

More: Former WHO anchor Jodi Long joins KCCI, switches teams after one year away from local TV

Peterson also shared his emotions in the courtroom, at one point breaking down in tears on the stand.

"I worked with Sonya for 14 years, and obviously you saw what I wrote about her (in performance reviews) and thought about her, so yes, (the lawsuit) has been tough," he testified afterward.

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: Sonya Heitshusen testifies in age discrimination trial against WHO-13