Philly Telly I   

Former Philadelphia news anchor Rich Noonan files a complaint with a state commission alleging that the local Fox station let him go because he is white.

Former Fox Philadelphia Ten O'Clock News anchor Rich Noonan files a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission alleging that the station discriminated against him when it declined to renew his contract last February. "I was not an egomaniac or a jerk to work with. I had a real good run there," says Noonan, 40, who worked for WXTF for 12 years. "They just decided I was the wrong race." His replacement, Dave Huddleston, hired several months after Noonan's departure, is black. The complaint attributes numerous racially tinged remarks to station Vice President and General Manager Roger LaMay, who, Noonan says, along with News Director Scott Matthews made clear to him that the station needed an African American on the news team. A Fox Philadelphia statement "categorically denies" the allegations. "His complaint is filled with inaccuracies, and certainly the slurs and whatever that have been attributed to me are totally false," says LaMay. "I think it's sour grapes over not getting his contract renewed." Noonan's attorney, former prosecutor Richard A. Sprague, who recently defended basketball star Allen Iverson, is well-known in media law circles--in 1990 he was awarded a $34 million judgment in a libel suit against the Philadelphia Inquirer, an amount later reduced to $24 million and finally settled out of court.