Paula Zetter, a veteran Emmy-winning design director at WQED-TV who was among at least nine employees terminated by WQED CEO Jason Jedlinski in late 2023 and early 2024, filed an age discrimination lawsuit against the public broadcaster last week.
According to court documents, Zetter seeks reinstatement to her job or compensation until she can find a similar position. Zetter’s lawsuit was filed by Greensburg attorney Samuel Cordes in federal court in Pittsburgh and asks for a jury trial.
Zetter, 59, worked for WQED for 23 years before her termination. The suit states that on the day Zetter was fired, four other employees were also fired. The average age of employees let go that day was 54.4, per the lawsuit.
“In February 2024, shortly before defendant eliminated Ms. Zetter and four other … older workers, Jedlinski suggested that Ms. Zetter should move to part-time work because she was now in this ‘phase of life,’ ” the lawsuit states.
Zetter’s suit states that her duties were to be assigned to three separate staff positions.
The lawsuit alleges that less than one year after Jedlinski joined WQED in 2023, Jedlinski eliminated 10 older employees whose average age was 50. During the same time, the lawsuit said that Jedlinski hired eight new employees whose average age was 36.7 years.
“Defendant did not eliminate the duties of Ms. Zetter or the other aforesaid mentioned older employees,” the lawsuit concludes. “Defendant just eliminated Ms. Zetter and each of the other four employees whose ages averaged 54.4.”
In a phone interview, Cordes said when Zetter was terminated, she was not given a reason for her firing but in an email to staff later that day, Jedlinski wrote the job cuts were to “continue to align our organization with WQED’s strategic objectives.”
In a statement to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in response to Zetter’s charge, WQED characterized the elimination of the five older employees as an “organizational restructuring to align with WQED’s strategic objectives, i.e. to better reflect the region’s diversity, to meaningfully engage more neighbors, to test new programs designed to increase WQED’s impact and to independently fund local initiatives.”
“That (WQED statement) says nothing,” Cordes said. “That’s word salad.”
A spokesperson for WQED said, “We do not comment on pending litigation, but deny any wrongdoing.”