Fired ABC journo wins small victory

Gizbert awarded $180k in Alphabet case

By ARCHIE THOMAS

Gizbert

Richard Gizbert, the London-based journalist who won an unfair dismissal claim against ABC in December after refusing to go to Iraq to cover the war, was awarded $180,000 in compensation on Monday.

At the employment tribunal, Gizbert evoked U.K. health and safety legislation in his case against ABC News. ABC claimed the 11-year vet of the net, who had previously reported from Rwanda and Bosnia, was let go in June 2004 due to budget cuts.

Gizbert, 48, was looking for up to $3.7 million in lost earnings based on what he would have earned with ABC had he stayed in the London bureau until retirement, less his new $100,000-a-year gig with Arab satcaster Al-Jazeera Intl.

But the compensation has fallen well short of the Gizbert's expectations.

"Given the strongly worded judgment in December, and the fact that the tribunal rejected most of ABC/Disney's arguments at the compensation hearing, my lawyers and I are perplexed with the compensation figure," he said in a statement. "In my view, it does not reflect the significant loss of earnings I and my family will suffer in the coming years, after my unfair and unlawful dismissal."

ABC maintains it never forces correspondents to work in war zones and is appealing the tribunal's original ruling. The appeal started Tuesday at the Central London Employment Appeal Tribunal and was expected to last two days.