BOB GARFIELD: In the early 1980s, a Kansas City news anchor named Christine Craft won a half million dollar judgment after being demoted because of her age and her looks. The case gained national attention and sparked a conversation about sex and age discrimination in broadcasting. Well, a lot has changed since then. News presentation, competition, fashion standards -- even the standards of projecting sexuality have evolved -- or devolved -- in 20 years. So, it's probably time to have that conversation again. This time, in the role of the aggrieved party, former Weather Channel anchor Marny Stanier. She lost her job a little over a year ago after a long career both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, and she's recently filed an age and sex discrimination lawsuit in federal district court in Atlanta. What makes this case unique is that we can all go straight to the videotape. Stanier has a video of the network's programming chief, Terry Connelly, issuing directives about sexiness and dowdiness to the women of the Weather Channel. We'll hear some of that in a moment. First, Daniel Klein is the lawyer representing Marny Stanier, and he joins me now from Atlanta. Dan, welcome to OTM.

DANIEL KLEIN: Thank you, Bob.

BOB GARFIELD: Lay out the particulars of the case for me, please. It's clear cut to you, I assume, that this was a case of age and sex discrimination, and not something else that caused her to lose her job.

DANIEL KLEIN: Marny Stanier was tossed aside because the Weather Channel wanted a younger, sexier look for its female weathercasters. Marny was one of the top performing OCMs -- that's Weather Channel talk for On Camera Meteorologists --at the Weather Channel for more than 16 years. She had received excellent evaluations throughout her career and had worked her way up to an OCM manager, and in that capacity, she both appeared on camera and supervised other weathercasters. In around 2003, the Weather Channel became obsessed with the idea that its look was too old. The senior vice president of programming and production, Terry Connelly, made no secret of the fact that he wanted to, in his words, "young up" the Weather Channel, and he went around telling people - making no secret of it - that the look of the Weather Channel, and particularly the women who were appearing as on camera weathercasters, was in his words "matronly and dowdy" and needed to be "younged up."

BOB GARFIELD: Well, lucky for Marny Stanier, she actually came in possession of video taken of some in-house training sessions conducted by Terry Connelly, and one of the clips sounds like this. [TAPE PLAYS]

TERRY CONNELLY: Dowdy -- look at this -- she's a young woman - I, I would bet she's early 30s, and she looks late 40s - that's what clothes can do to you. Do you want to look old? [TAPE ENDS]

DANIEL KLEIN: These video clips are the equivalent of the Rodney King videotape. They're smoking gun evidence that what the Weather Channel wanted to do was young up the look of its female on camera meteorologists. [TAPE PLAYS]

TERRY CONNELLY: What you can't see is she is wearing a, a short black skirt with a slit up the side, gang. Okay?

WOMAN: Wow.

TERRY CONNELLY: And now you're not going to see it-- They ain't bland, they ain't dowdy, they ain't matronly. [TAPE ENDS]

BOB GARFIELD: I must say, this is a tough one for me, because of course I believe that as a matter of human behavior and social policy and law, everybody should be protected from age and sex discrimination, and nobody's job should be hanging in the balance of something so superficial as looks -- and yet, the reality is, this is show business. I mean yes, it's meteorology, but it's also show business, and they're advertising revenue is directly associated with their ratings, and their ratings, they can show to a fare-thee-well, although they won't present it in court, because it's self-indicting, but they could prove to a fare-thee-well are related to the looks of the people on camera. What is the broadcast news industry supposed to do about the collision of these two realities?

DANIEL KLEIN: The broadcast industry is expected to do what society is expected to do as a whole, which is to shed stereotypes. Just a few decades ago, there were jobs that were considered inappropriate for women because of outdated stereotypes. Go back a few more years, and you exclude group after group from positions of responsibility in our society. The market will shed those stereotypes, and to a large degree, it already has. I don't think anyone's going to tell you today that viewers would not accept weathercasters like Marny Stanier. In fact, her ratings suggested that she had no problems with the viewers. It was the stereotype view of the Weather Channel that caused the problems here.

BOB GARFIELD: Hm. Well, Dan, thank you very much.

DANIEL KLEIN: My pleasure.

BOB GARFIELD: Dan Klein, with Buckley & Klein in Atlanta, is representing Marny Stanier in her lawsuit against the Weather Channel. The Weather Channel declined to comment on this story. [MUSIC]