A new 4,000-word Weekly story examines the inner workings of the "crusade" the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI) went on against the paper and the spin the agency used to claim victory in the settlement reached last week. "How Orlando's morality police went from fangs bared to tail between their legs is an old story, one the Weekly has written extensively," the paper reports. The Weekly wrote critical stories that embarrassed the MBI and believes it was likely targeted because of them. "The MBI came after the paper with charges serious enough to put it out of business. The charges were dropped and the case was settled out of court," the Weekly reports. "You decide who won."
The Independent Weekly's Derek Anderson was named Photographer of the Year by the NCPA, and the Weekly took home four first-place awards, for Investigative Reporting, Feature Photography, Photo Page, and News Coverage. The paper also placed second in two categories and third in one. Creative Loafing (Charlotte) finished first in two categories: News Feature Writing and Lighter Columns. Mountain XPress also took a second-place award for Investigative Reporting, and a third-place "general excellence" award for its website.
The jury began deliberations on Friday and will resume this morning. Both the SF Weekly and the San Francisco Bay Guardian need nine of the 12 jurors to take their side in order to win the case. "Much like two candidates in the final days before an election, attacks from both sides are getting increasingly personal as a verdict nears," the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The daily says the trial has brought to light financial data that call into question whether the city can support two alt-weeklies at "a time when newspapers are consolidating to stay alive." Local blogger Randy Shaw agrees. "Maybe the San Francisco market can't support two alternative weeklies," he says. "It's likely, after the outcome of this court case, there might only be one left standing." For the most recent coverage, check out the trial blogs from the Guardian and the Weekly.
"All sides claimed victory" yesterday when the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI) dropped 18 charges against the Weekly, which in turn agreed to stop running adult ads and pay the MBI $10,000 for its investigation, the Orlando Sentinel reports. In addition, the paper's three employees who were personally charged agreed to perform 100 hours of community service within nine months to have their charges dismissed. "There's no need to proceed to a jury trial ... when everything that needed to be done is being done," MBI director Bill Lutz says. "They have stepped up. They've actually done more than we asked." But the Weekly says the MBI settled because it knew it was going to lose the case. "It is no coincidence that the MBI entered into settlement talks a week before today's scheduled motion-to-dismiss hearing, in which the Weekly was prepared to argue, essentially, that the MBI was making up the law as it went along," the paper says in an initial report. The Weekly promises to have a full account of the investigation and settlement on its website soon.
While working on a story on the growth of Vermont's bottled water industry, reporter Mike Ives arranged an interview with a hydrogeologist from the state's Agency of Natural Resources (ANR). But when it came time to conduct the interview, Ives was referred instead to Sabina Haskell, ANR's communications director, who eventually told him, "I won't be able to line up anyone to talk to you." In the meantime, she'd also circulated an internal memo directing ANR employees not to speak with Seven Days unless clearing it with her. "Twice since I've been here," Haskell says as justification, "we've made ourselves readily available and were told that interviews were going to go one way and the story turned out completely differently." The dispute "spilled over to the Vermont Legislature" this week, according to the Rutland Herald. During hearings on two open government bills, the chairwoman of the Senate Government Operations Committee brought up the memo "as an example of how difficult it sometimes is to get agency experts to speak to legislative committees."
A federal judge on Wednesday granted a request for a preliminary injunction in a case brought in January by the ACLU of Michigan on behalf of Metro Times, three political parties, and a political consulting firm, the Associated Press reports. The suit seeks information about who voted in the state's primary and whether they took a Republican or Democratic ballot -- records that are currently available only to those two political parties. Under current law, the secretary of state is required to provide this information to the parties within 71 days of the primary, which was held this year on Jan. 15. But the plaintiffs argue that violates the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The ruling yesterday prevents the information from being disseminated before the judge can make a definitive decision. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for March 26.
The Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI) has dropped its racketeering charges against the Weekly, as well as the misdemeanor and felony charges it filed against three Weekly employees last October for of selling ads to prostitutes, the paper reports. "As it turns out, the MBI brain-trust hit a small hitch -- there's not really anything illegal about that," the Weekly's Jeff Billman writes. The paper has agreed to stop running Adult Services ads, and reimbursed the MBI $10,000 for its investigation.
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