CBS settles age-discrimination lawsuit involving former Channel 11 traffic reporter
CBS has reached a settlement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over allegations of age discrimination involving a veteran television traffic reporter at its Fort Worth-Dallas television stations.
CBS Stations Group of Texas must pay $215,000 to Tammy Dombeck Campbell. The group includes KTVT Channel 11 and KTXA Channel 21.
The settlement was signed by U.S. District Chief Judge Barbara M. G. Lynn on July 12 in Dallas.
In addition to the payment, the company must provide training on the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, publish a notice of employee rights and report to the EEOC on its compliance with the requirements in the order.
The Texas stations are part of New York-based ViacomCBS, which owns 29 television stations, KTVT and KTXA.
CBS admitted no wrongdoing.
“Tammy Campbell was clearly qualified for the position of traffic reporter,” said Joel Clark, EEOC senior trial attorney for the Dallas District Office, in a news release earlier this week. “The EEOC argued to the court that CBS 11 preferred a younger, less qualified applicant, and that the employer defaulted to unfounded stereotypes about female reporters.”
KTVT released this statement on the settlement: “We are pleased this matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties.”
The lawsuit was filed in 2017 by the EEOC after Channel 11 in Fort Worth refused to hire the popular 42-year-old reporter.
In 2017, a CBS Dallas-Fort Worth spokeswoman sent a statement to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, saying, “KTVT respectfully disagrees with the EEOC’s current assessment and looks forward to resolving this matter.”
Dombeck had worked as a freelance traffic reporter at CBS 11 beginning in February 2013. In late April 2015, Dombeck posted on her Facebook page “it is with great disappointment that I write this post to you today, CBSDFW has decided not to hire me for the Morning Traffic Position.”
Before Dombeck was at CBS 11, she spent 12 years at KXAS Channel 5 as its “Gridlock Buster” traffic reporter. She left NBC 5 in 2012. Dombeck did fill-in work in the morning and occasionally afternoons on CBS 11, with her morning duties increasing after full-time traffic reporter Whitney Drolen left in October 2014.
After Drolen’s departure, the station initiated a search for a replacement, stating that “the ideal candidate will have a strong knowledge of local traffic in the Dallas/Fort Worth area” and that the “applicant must have at least 5 years professional broadcasting experience,” according to a EEOC’s news release.
Dombeck, who was identified in the suit by her married name, Tammy Campbell, applied for the job, according to the EEOC release. “CBS 11 hired a 24-year-old applicant for the full-time traffic reporter position,” the EEOC statement says. “The younger applicant did not have five years’ professional broadcasting experience, nor did she have any broadcast experience in the DFW metro area.”
“All the girls they auditioned for this job were in their 20s,” Dombeck told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram via Facebook in 2015. “I didn’t have a chance. Frustrating.”
Chelsey Davis, a former Arizona Cardinals Cheerleader, was hired on May 1, 2015. Davis left in late 2016, and Fort Worth-raised Madison Adams Sawyer took over the traffic reporter position.
