What’s Behind Latino Exodus at KNBC News? : Television: Five members of the staff have left in five months, some citing bias. Channel 4 news director Mark Hoffman is accused of giving white males choice assignments, but management denies the charges.

KNBC-TV Channel 4 is under fire from Latino journalists who charge that discrimination by management played a key role in the exit of five Latino reporters and anchors in less than five months.

Current and former newsroom staffers said that Latino journalists have been consistently treated with disrespect and pushed into the background since Mark Hoffman took over as news director last March, while white male reporters received preferential treatment.

“I am resigning due to the continual oppressive discriminatory treatment I am experiencing in the Channel 4 newsroom,” reporter Rebecca A. Aguilar wrote in her resignation letter Nov. 8 to President and General Manager Reed Manville.

Aguilar and others said that, under Hoffman, white male reporters have gotten the best stories, better work schedules and more career incentives, while Latino journalists largely have been relegated to less important stories and assigned mostly to morning and weekend shifts.

Some of those who have departed said the atmosphere at the station became so oppressive that they felt compelled to leave even though they did not have another job lined up or would have to take a cut in pay. Their sentiments were echoed by several other KNBC employees who spoke on the condition that their names not be used.

Manville vehemently denied the charges. He said KNBC is well above Federal Communications Commission guidelines in the number of Latinos employed at the station and added that the news division has recently hired four Latinos in front of and behind the camera. Without going into specifics, he said the reasons for the departures of the five Latinos stemmed from personal or professional considerations that had nothing to do with mistreatment or prejudice.

“We categorically deny that there is any discrimination at the station,” Manville said. “We are committed to diversity in our news force.”

*

But veteran anchor Carla Aragon, who left KNBC Jan. 21 following prolonged contract negotiations, maintained that management is to blame for the conditions that led to the exits.

“KNBC may claim it has not discriminated against Latinos, but something has to be wrong,” Aragon said. “Why would five Latino reporters leave in the last five months if conditions at KNBC were so good--especially three veteran reporters who have been in the L.A. market for a total of almost three decades?”

She added, “I hope that, by my departure, the station’s awareness level can be raised.”

Aragon’s departure was the fifth among the eight Latino reporters and anchors who were at the station when Hoffman took over as news director. Besides her and Aguilar, those leaving KNBC since August are veteran reporter David Garcia, now working at KTTV-TV Channel 11; anchor Linda Alvarez, now an anchor at KCBS-TV Channel 2, and Dan Rascon, a reporter in the minority training program who was let go at the end of his internship. (The remaining three Latino reporters either declined to be quoted about the atmosphere at KNBC or couldn’t be reached.)

In the same period, the only white journalist to leave KNBC was anchor John Beard, who departed in December to take an anchor position at KTTV. He cited dissatisfaction with the news judgment of his bosses, which he said centered on tabloid journalism.

Hoffman, a TV news director in Chicago and Atlanta before joining NBC-owned Channel 4 here, deferred comment on the controversy to Manville.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition, a watchdog organization that monitors the employment of Latinos in radio, television and film, last month filed an “informal objection” with the Federal Communications Commission against the renewal of KNBC’s license, saying that the grievances and departures of the Latinos demonstrates that the station has not lived up to its assurances to give Latinos an equal opportunity to be hired and promoted.

The California Chicano News Media Assn. said it is planning an inquiry into the departures.

KNBC’s Latino journalists held meetings with Hoffman last September and October to voice their grievances. Although some acknowledged that conditions improved somewhat after the sessions, most indicated that “a negative atmosphere” continues to exist at the station.

“I’m glad to be where I am now, where I am respected as a journalist and trusted to use my expertise as a journalist and a member of the L.A. community,” said Alvarez, who now anchors the morning and noon newscasts at KCBS. “I don’t feel that was happening for me and for many other people at Channel 4.”

Rascon, who now works as a general assignment reporter at a TV station in Denver, said he felt preferential treatment was given to a selected group of white males.

“The Hispanics were discriminated against in the sense that we were not given lead stories,” he said. “The same people day in and day out got those stories.”

He also said he was not given enough feedback and training during his internship at the station.

“I felt I was not given a fair shot,” Rascon said. “I came in with the understanding that I was not qualified for KNBC, and they agreed to bring me in and train me. But only once did anyone look at my work and critique me.”

Hoffman and Manville declined to speak specifically about the individual reporters and anchors who have left. But management sources said they believe that Alvarez and Garcia departed because they received more attractive offers from competing stations, that Aguilar was disgruntled about Hoffman’s aggressive methods in trying to improve the news operation, and that Rascon’s work was not up to KNBC standards.

Garcia declined to comment, but Aguilar, who quit several months before her contract expired, said of this explanation, “I was not disgruntled; I was unhappy. I gave up a big salary and I didn’t have a job. I was tired of fighting the negative energy and injustices.” She now works for a station in Dallas as a general assignment reporter and said she is making $15,000 a year less than she did at KNBC.

*

As for Aragon, the KNBC management sources said they were surprised at her decision to leave because, after extended discussions, executives had met her demand to co-anchor the 4 p.m. news and to boost her salary from $180,000 a year to $300,000. They concluded that she left because she was seeking a “life change” and wanted to rejoin her family in New Mexico.

But Aragon, a 10 1/2-year veteran at Channel 4, said, “My negotiations with KNBC were unsatisfactory. The station did not meet my personal deadline or my personal expectations. Station management dragged its feet and made me jump through hoops. It was not until I gave notice that the station finally made a fair offer. But by then it was too late.”

She continued, “It’s very difficult to leave a place that has become home, where there are many friends and many people who I respect as journalists. That is the biggest loss. I would have stayed if the conditions had been better, and if they had presented their offer two weeks earlier.

“But I would rather go to a smaller market and make less money, but work at a station that values my commitment to the community and treats employees with respect.”

Countering the accusations by Aragon and others, KNBC’s Manville pointed out that Latinos have been hired in recent weeks in prominent positions, including general assignment reporter Jim Avila; “Today in L.A.” morning anchor Kathy Vara; former Assistant U.S. Atty. Manuel Medrano, who will become the station’s legal affairs reporter, and News Manager Fernando Lopez.

“This is a competitive market, and we’re building a new team,” Manville said. “In building a team, you’re often presented with opportunity--some by choice, some by default. We look upon every opportunity to attract the best and brightest journalists we can find without any regard to their race or ethnic background.”