The ‘Wall Street Journal’ is being sued by a star reporter for discrimination

A case of disability discrimination was filed on Tuesday by a former journalist who left the site Wall Street Journal at the end of the year it accused the paper of seeking to fire workers who contribute to large health care costs by asking for «bad performance issues.»

The suit, from before Journal healthcare reporter Stephanie Armour, follows a wave of layoffs ordered by Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker at a time when parent company News Corp says the paper has enjoyed several years of record profits. The Journal has fired dozens of reporters from its Washington bureau, its national news team, its state unit and overseas, among other places.

Armor, one of the outbreak’s top reporters, left in May and has since taken a job with KFF Health News. (KFF Health News has a reporting partnership with NPR.)

«I believe that The Wall Street Journal, in this case and perhaps in others, they fraudulently manipulated ratings and reviews as a way to get rid of a high-profile, relatively well-paid, and well-heeled person,» says Rob Housman. , Armour’s attorney. «It seems to me that’s the pattern that’s happening with this case and maybe — maybe others.»

Speaker of The Wall Street Journal said: «The complaint is full of baseless allegations, and the legal claims are completely without merit. We will fight this case vigorously.»

In an article posted earlier this month, Tucker told Vanity Fair that he was brought over from a sister paper, which Times of London, to update Journal.

«The business environment is full of companies that haven’t made the changes they needed to make,» he said. «So I’m like, Let’s do it now.» Tucker pushed for the idea of home of mass retirement.

Disagreement about side work

Armor claims that because the newspaper is «self-serving,» the company is able to save twice as much money by dumping high-income earners who rack up high medical expenses.

According to the court report, Armor was allowed to work at home several days a week to help manage post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety disorder, both of which are disabilities under the law. DC civil rights. He was also given permission to do so, his suit says, to USA Today and Bloomberg News, where he was previously a reporter.

He says that in 2015, an argument with his editor, Janet Adamy, about the story ended in a fine. According to the lawsuit, Adamy told Armor to stop working at the home, despite Armor’s claims that it was an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Arms submitted a formal request to work from home two days a week, which the paper accepted. Adamy continued to take revenge, he says; Armor’s suit cites a former manager who emailed him saying Adamy «obviously still has a bone to pick about your homework, which he doesn’t have.» common sense and silly when you think about how well you’re doing.» (Editorial duties, Armor says, are not available to him, as bosses have cited his work arrangements.)

He says he was reassigned to other editors and allowed to work from home three days a week — which became a full-time job after the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020. , nearly 24 hours a day , for a period of two years.”

During this time, the paper nominated him for the Pulitzer Prize twice, he received a performance bonus, and he received compliments from his boss, the suit says. Like Journal he reversed his plan to work remotely in 2022, returning to the office one or two days a week.

Tucker, the paper’s editor-in-chief, was appointed in early 2023. In early 2024, he named a new Washington bureau chief, Damian Paletta. Adamy, who was the manager of Armor, was made deputy. Former Washington bureau chief Paul Beckett was fired after refusing to cut jobs, according to a former colleague.

They pressured Armor to report to work three days a week, in line with the larger one Journal policy, he says in the lawsuit.

In April, a section of the paper’s staff gave him a new request for more remote accommodation. Nine days later, according to the suit, Paletta issued him with a formal action notice, a termination action for cause action. Among the requirements during his 30-day test: produce a scoop per week. «No reporter produces a scoop a week — not one,» the lawsuit argues.

Arms filed a complaint with the union. He says he was destined to fail, and resigned from his job, getting a job with KFF. The complaint went down as he left Journalaccording to his lawyer.

Additional disciplinary comments

Before leaving the paper, Armor was a representative of Journal‘s newsroom at the union’s board of directors. In court documents, Armor says the treatment he’s accused of was directed at other former reporters.

«Mrs. Lihlomo (then a union board member) heard word with knowledge that the WSJ was planning to use the fast-track news to target high-wage workers in protected by workers with high health/housing costs for termination,” the suit says.

Others targeted, according to the suit, include «a senior reporter who had recently taken medical leave; a veteran and disabled reporter who had taken paternity leave and whose leave mentioned in his performance improvement project; and an award-winning journalist who had high medical expenses due to a heart attack.” War veteran Ben Kesling was fired from his job as a reporter there earlier this year.

A leading paper organization says such disciplinary reviews are on the rise.

«They’re playing a two-to-one clip for 2024 compared to 2023,» says Timothy Martell, executive director of the union that represents about 400 members for 2024. The Wall Street Journal‘s newsroom, the Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees, or IAPE, 1096.

Martell said 39 members of its organization, which includes other newsrooms within News Corp. units. of Dow Jones, were called to investigative or disciplinary hearings last year. From the first six months of this year, 32 workers who represent the unions were also summoned in the same way.

Martell says: «What worries us is the increase. «Having two times in the IAPE-Dow Jones relationship, that is something we are going to pay attention to, even if we believe that every summon one of the corrections was legal – and I’m not.»

«After we have a financial performance report, we have twice as many people for performance alerts? That doesn’t make sense to me.»