TV Reporter Says Firing Was Based on His Sex, Age : Civil rights: The former Channel 34 news writer files suit. He claims he was told that he didn’t fit ‘the new image’ of the station.

A veteran male reporter with KMEX Channel 34 television filed suit against the station Monday, charging that he was fired last year because of his age and sex.

“In the over 10 years that I worked for this company, I was never once reprimanded for my work as (a) news writer or news reporter,” Mario Lechuga, 57, told a news conference in front of the station’s offices in Hollywood. “On the contrary, many times I was congratulated.”

Nonetheless, Lechuga said, on Jan. 4, 1991, he was fired after being told that he no longer fit “the new image” of the Spanish-language station.

“The new image is easy to see,” Lechuga said. “Since my termination, KMEX has hired mainly women reporters. All of them were younger and less experienced than I.”

Michael Martinez, KMEX’s general manager, said Monday that he was “surprised to learn of Mr. Lechuga’s complaint.”

“He had previously filed complaints with his union, the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists, and with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,” Martinez said. “After investigation, AFTRA told him not to pursue the matter, and the charge before the EEOC was withdrawn. We are confident of a similar outcome in this case.”

Lechuga said he now works as a reporter with a Mexico-based television station at about half his former salary, which was between $50,000 and $60,000 a year.

His lawyer, Gloria Allred, was asked whether his firing was indicative of an industrywide trend toward replacing older reporters with younger--and usually less expensive-- personnel.

“You’d have to ask John Marshall,” she said.

Marshall, a 49-year-old reporter with KNBC Channel 4, was fired last month after two decades with the station. Although Channel 4 has declined comment, Marshall said he was told that he “didn’t fit” the team being assembled by the station’s new general manager and news director.

“It’s clear that many stations are looking for more youthful images,” Allred said. “KMEX is not alone in that category.”

This is not the first time that Allred--a feminist well known for defending the rights of women in the marketplace--has defended men against what she sees as unfair sex discrimination.

In 1981, she championed the cause of Howard Goldberg, a Santa Monica marketing consultant who challenged the exclusion of men from that city’s Commission on the Status of Women.

Six weeks later, the Santa Monica City Council backed down and eliminated the prohibition against men, but Goldberg failed to get enough council votes for appointment to the commission.