The Metro Newspapers CEO is "one of the few publishers that have successfully navigated the treacherous straights between print media and the new world online," the trade magazine Domain Name Journal says in a cover profile. The story concentrates on Pulcrano's creation of Boulevards New Media and his acquisition of a "near priceless portfolio that includes 20 of the 30 largest American city names in the .com extension." But Pulcrano also talks about how he got into journalism and ended up creating Metro Newspapers in the first place. He started publishing underground papers at age 11, later reported for the San Diego Reader, and then was approached by Jay Levin to help launch the L.A. Weekly when he was 19 years old. "Working there was life changing for me too; from that point on I knew what I wanted to do," he says of his stint at the Weekly.
Village Voice Media chief financial officer Jed Brunst and former SF Weekly publisher Chris Keating took the stand yesterday in the predatory-pricing trial. In its wrap-up, the SF Weekly focuses on the part of Brunst's testimony that offered "evidence that Weekly rates have been going up over time," not down. The Bay Guardian, on the other hand, focuses on the "huge amounts of cash" the Weekly and the East Bay Express had lost under New Times/VVM control. The trial takes a day off today for Lincoln's Birthday, and will resume on Wednesday.
On Friday, Village Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey testified in the predatory pricing trial. The Guardian says Lacey "had some trouble answering some key questions" about SF Weekly's ad sales and a 1995 meeting where he met the Weekly staff shortly after purchasing the paper. The Weekly says Lacey's testimony illustrated that his and Bruce Brugmann's "editorial philosophies were worlds apart," and notes that Lacey's testimony showed he is not involved in the business side of VVM's affairs. This is key because of comments he made about being "the only game in town," which the Guardian is using as evidence he wanted to drive them out of business. Patricia Calhoun, editor of Denver's Westword, which New Times bought in 1983, also testified on Friday, and according to the Weekly, she "got on and off the stand in only about twenty minutes, a timely performance that drew appreciative nods from jurors." The trial resumes today.
The Bay Guardian says Sandy Lange provided the jury with a primer on "how predatory pricing by a big chain works." SF Weekly says she crumbled under cross-examination.
The documents in question were held by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, the same outfit involved in the secret grand jury kerfuffle that led to the arrests of Village Voice Media executives Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey and, ultimately, to the humiliation of county attorney Andrew Thomas and special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik. New Times originally sought the documents in May 2004; MCSO released them five months later, after New Times was forced to file suit. On Tuesday, the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's ruling, finding that MCSO "wrongfully denied New Times access to public records." The Court of Appeals sent the case back to superior court "for a further determination on the issue of attorney's fees." In the Arizona Republic, the Sheriff's deputy chief admitted that the officer responsible for complying with public-records requests "was truly afraid of the (New Times) reporter, that there was a genuine personal joint vendetta between the two of them."
Former Guardian ad director Jody Colley continued her testimony in that paper's predatory pricing trial against SF Weekly and Village Voice Media yesterday, as did Jennifer Lopez, a former ad sales rep of both papers. Colley's testimony centered on just how many accounts the Guardian may have lost due to alleged ad-price undercutting by the Weekly, and also on the challenges she faces in trying to increase the "unacceptably low prices" that she inherited from Village Voice Media when she took over as publisher of the East Bay Express, which was sold by VVM to by a group of investors in May 2007 and is also named in the suit. The trial resumes this morning.
Executive editor Tim Redmond and former ad director Jody Colley were called as witnesses yesterday in the predatory pricing trial against the Weekly and Village Voice Media. Redmond's testimony centered on local ownership and the crucial matter of editorial spending. The Guardian is arguing that the Weekly was trying to put them out of business because it refused to cut editorial spending while it lost money overall. On the other hand, the Weekly reports that Redmond said he has had to struggle with laying off writers and editors over the past few years. "If [ad] revenue goes down, I have to cut costs. The Weekly editors don't have to meet that kind of budget; they can just get more money from headquarters," Redmond writes on the Guardian's blog. Colley, who is now the publisher of the East Bay Express, testified mostly about the Weekly's dealings with concert promoter Billy Graham Presents, which the Guardian claims is an example of illegal below-cost pricing. Her testimony will continue when the trial resumes this morning.
Yesterday, both sides in the predatory-pricing suit filed by the Guardian against SF Weekly and Village Voice Media gave their opening arguments, and Guardian associate publisher Jean Dibble took the stand. The local website Beyond Chron lays out the plaintiff's burden: "The Guardian will have to prove four things: (1) the SF Weekly sold ads below cost; (2) the Guardian was harmed; (3) the harm was due in large part to the fact that the Weekly sold ads below cost; and (4) the SF Weekly's purpose in selling the ads below cost was to cause harm to the Guardian." The Guardian's attorney argued that the Weekly has lost money for 11 straight years (a claim the defendants contest) as a direct result of selling ads below cost, and that it was selling at that rate with the express intent of damaging the Guardian. "If you're not trying to make a profit, what are you trying to do?," the Guardian reports he asked the jury. The Weekly's attorney argued that, yes, the paper has been selling ads below cost, but to cope with a tough regional economy and competition from the internet, not to put its competitor out of business. "The reason we were selling below cost is because that is all we could get for the ads," he told the jury, according to the Weekly's dispatch. The trial resumes this morning.
- Go to the previous page
- 1
- …
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- …
- 63
- Go to the next page
