On Nov. 9, America's second-largest newspaper publisher, Tribune Company, sued two of its ex-employees, as well as their current employer, New Times. Why? Because the employees in question, both entry- to mid-level advertising representatives, have agreements (that they don't remember signing) with Tribune that forbid their working for competing publications within a certain amount of time after leaving the company. An article in New Times Broward-Palm Beach calls the lawsuit an attempt to force the employees -- one a single mother, the other a divorced dad paying for his daughter's college education -- from their current positions.
Bradford W. Ketchum Jr., last editor of the defunct Maine Times magazine, is suing owner Christopher Hutchins for severance pay, reports Bangor Daily News. Maine Times was originally a weekly newspaper and was a member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, hosting the association's 1987 convention. In mid-2002, Hutchins closed the paper and revamped it as a monthly magazine, hiring Ketchum as editor at a yearly salary of $120,000. According to Bangor Daily News, Ketchum asked for and received a letter that stated he would receive one year's severance pay if his employment were terminated. In January 2004, all Maine Times staffers abruptly lost their jobs when Hutchins told them that publication would cease immediately.
Editor John Mecklin takes aim at a "smelly BS-offensive emanating" from the San Francisco Bay Guardian, which, he says, contains "huge doses of distortion, some outright falsehood, and very little truth." Mecklin says the "capper" to this offensive is the predatory-pricing lawsuit that Bay Guardian filed last week against SF Weekly and its sister publication, East Bay Express. The Bay Guardian has long tried "to convince San Francisco of the dangerous evil that a New Times-owned SF Weekly represents," writes Mecklin. "Over that time, SF Weekly has sailed ahead, and the Bay Guardian has foundered." (Second item on linked page.) Also addressed: SF Weekly's response to Puni-comic controversy. (Main item on linked page.)
The San Francisco Bay Guardian filed a lawsuit in the city's Superior Court against SF Weekly, East Bay Express and New Times Media, LLC, which owns the two weeklies. The suit alleges that New Times repeatedly sold ads at less than the cost of producing them and offered secret deals to advertisers to keep them from advertising in the Bay Guardian. Both activities would violate California law. New Times owns 11 alternative papers, all of which, like the Bay Guardian, are members of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.
The cover of the Oct. 13 edition of Riverfront Times features an aerial photograph of 57 naked women arranged to form a peace sign -- an image meant to bring attention to an antiwar arts event in St. Louis, Mo., called "Peace Out!" According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, several businesses have removed copies of the alt-weekly from display shelves -- and at least one did so after a visit from local police. Riverfront Times editor Tom Finkel says, "We put it out there knowing it was a provocative image, but never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that a police department would take actions to remove the publication from a newsstand."
At least five L.A. Weekly senior editorial and art department employees -- including veteran education reporter Howard Blume -- have filed grievances with management via the International Association of Machinists, the paper's bargaining unit, reports L.A. Alternative Press. Most are alleging that they're being pushed out of their jobs without adequate union process as specified in their contracts and only because they make some of the paper's top union salaries. These charges come on the heels of the September ouster of several veteran employees at The Village Voice, which, like L.A. Weekly, is owned by Village Voice Media.
New Times writer John Dougherty has filed 17 public records requests with Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County, Ariz., Office -- and received nothing in return. So, when Dougherty ran into Lisa Allen MacPherson, public information officer for the sheriff's office, he asked her when the records would be produced. "Never," she replied, adding that her office did not recognize New Times as a legitimate paper. When Dougherty reminded her that all citizens have the right to review public records, MacPherson quipped, "So sue us!" The weekly filed suit in Superior Court on Sept. 23, asking that Arpaio and his office be ordered under Arizona law to produce requested documents.
Tele-Publishing Inc. filed suit Sept. 22 in U.S. District Court in Arizona against Andrew B. Sutcliffe and his Tucson-based company, Sutcliffe Associates. Last year Sutcliffe, who was the founding president of TPI, launched a personals service, known as SelectAlternatives, that competes against the service of his former employer. TPI claims that Sutcliffe and five AAN papers that use SelectAlternatives infringed on four patents it owns, which Sutcliffe co-invented when he was TPI's president. The publishing companies that own the five AAN papers are named as co-defendants in the suit. Sutcliffe has issued a response saying that the suit is without merit, and he promises to mount a vigorous defense.
