The legal battle between the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the SF Weekly is "a war straight out of the last century in its ruthlessness and its destructive potential," writes The Stranger's Eli Sanders in a 10,000-plus word cover story this week. The piece covers a lot of ground, but frames the battle as one between two alt-titans: Bay Guardian publisher Bruce Brugmann and Village Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey. "These two men have hated each other for decades," Sanders writes, "but with increasing venom since 1995, when Lacey showed up in San Francisco in cowboy boots to announce that he and his partners had just purchased the tiny SF Weekly and planned to make a huge success of it."
In a message to all Village Voice Media employees sent out today, VVM CEO Jim Larkin and executive editor Michael Lacey say the ramifications of last week's court order that suggested the San Francisco Bay Guardian could seize assets from papers other than SF Weekly has been widely misunderstood. "[The order] simply says the Guardian can try and go after cash distributions New Times receives from its publications as a limited partner or member of the company," they say, pointing out that "the amount of those monies is zero," since the company's publications are "separately organized limited liability companies or limited partnerships that own, operate and publish in their respective communities." They say that as they continue their appeal of the original judgment, "our publications will continue to publish and conduct business as they have all along."
While last year's verdict in favor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian in its predatory pricing lawsuit against SF Weekly and Village Voice Media is being appealed, the Guardian claims VVM is ducking its debts and hiding its assets in an effort not to pay the $15.6 million it owes in damages. VVM executive editor Michael Lacey says that's not correct. "The case is on appeal. You are not entitled to a penny," he writes in a blog post.
The State Bar has dismissed the final two complaints pending against Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, including one about his handling of the 2007 investigation of Phoenix New Times that ended with the arrests of Village Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey and CEO Jim Larkin. "No one in their right mind has ever looked to the Arizona Bar as a beacon of courage, and it has certainly upheld its longstanding reputation with this dismissal today," Larkin says.
Tim Nelson, the Democrat challenging Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, is running a radio ad accusing Thomas of ordering the October 2007 arrests of Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey because they reported in Phoenix New Times that they had been served a sweeping subpoena from a special prosecutor demanding information about the paper's online readers, Editor & Publisher reports. The ad says Thomas is responsible for "arresting journalists in the dark of night in front of their families because of what they published," and accuses Thomas of using KGB tactics. (New Times reports that Thomas tried to get the commercial pulled from local airwaves.) "Make no mistake about it: the New Times subpoenas and arrests were a massive abuse of power and the public trust," Nelson said at a press conference yesterday. "They have brought ridicule to our county and its justice system."
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton this week dismissed some, but not all, of a suit filed in April over the arrests of New Times founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin last year. Bolton dismissed the allegations of racketeering and negligence against special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, in addition to dismissing County Attorney Andrew Thomas entirely as a defendant, New Times reports. However, she left claims of gross negligence, malicious prosecution, and false arrest and imprisonment to be handled by Superior Court, unless facts presented in an amended complaint persuade her otherwise (New Times has until Oct. 31 to file such a complaint). Saying that Bolton's ruling "is not a surprise," Lacey writes in a blog post that "her ruling in the current case is consistent with her scant regard for the First Amendment and the rights of a free press."
The Associated Press Managing Editors association selected winners for its annual awards this week in New York, and the group cited New Times in the First Amendment category for "for aggressively investigating and reporting on grand jury subpoenas seeking notes, tapes and confidential sources related to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an investigation that expanded to other citizens." The awards will be presented during the group's September conference in Las Vegas.
Outgoing editor Liz Garrigan reports that she had "openly recommended Scene managing editor Matt Pulle for [her] job, and he was seriously considered." But in the end, Village Voice Media brought Pete Kotz over from the soon-to-be-defunct Cleveland Scene, a move that was criticized by some of the paper's staff. "Bypassing Matt sent exactly the wrong message to the city: It said that the Scene is just another interchangeable cog in a big corporate wheel," one staffer says anonymously. Former Scene media critic Henry Walker agrees. "The idea of an alternative weekly paper importing an editor would have been almost unthinkable just a decade ago," he says. "[But VVM] has pioneered the adoption of a cookie-cutter news and design formula and the employment of fungible editors among the alternative weeklies." VVM executive editor Michael Lacey, for one, isn't buying Walker's critique. "For nearly 40 years, we, like most alternative newspaper owners, have selected editors, writers and columnists based upon their skill, not their birth certificate," Lacey says. "Walker's simplistic comments reflect parochial jingoism."
"Reporters have ended up in handcuffs in the United States before -- some have gone to jail to protect the identity of sources -- but it is a rare moment when someone here is imprisoned for the crime of typing," Carr writes in today's New York Times. He details how the tumultuous relationship between New Times and Sheriff Joe Arpaio ultimately led to the arrest of the paper's founders last year for disclosing a grand jury probe of the paper and its readers. Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey recently sued the sheriff and other officials for the debacle. "Suing people is not the core of what we do, but our arrest was just the culmination of an ongoing reign of terror that is still continuing," Lacey says.
