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.
Yesterday, Judge Marla Miller denied Village Voice Media and SF Weekly's request to delay the predatory-pricing trial in order to further review some documents, and jury selection will get underway today at 8 am, according to reports in the Weekly and the Guardian. With jury selection expected to last two days, the judge has scheduled opening arguments for Monday.
The predatory pricing suit against SF Weekly and Village Voice Media asserts that the Weekly sold ads below cost to push the Guardian out of business. (The suit also names former VVM property East Bay Express as a defendant.) VVM executive editor Michael Lacey thinks Bay Guardian publisher/editor Bruce Brugmann is using the Weekly as a "scapegoat" for his own problems in dealing with new challenges in print media. "[The lawsuit] is how he's hoping to maintain his business in a really tough media market," Lacey tells The San Francisco Daily Journal, a local legal publication. But Brugmann disputes this notion. "From our point of view, the fact that the economy is not good and there are other problems in this business only makes this problem more acute," he says. Jury selection is set to begin tomorrow in San Francisco County Superior Court. Legal experts tell the Daily Journal that predatory-pricing cases face different odds depending on where they are filed, adding that California superior courts are generally seen as more friendly to plaintiffs than federal courts.
Annalee Newitz, who was culture editor at the San Francisco Bay Guardian from 2000-2004 and whose Techsploitation column runs in many AAN papers, is now editing a new Gawker Media blog, Wired reports. i09, which tackles futurism and sci-fi, went live yesterday.
That's freelance writer Seth Hettena's take. "Week after week, I pick up the Reader hoping to find something worth reading over a cup of coffee only to fling aside moments later in disappointment," he writes on the Voice of San Diego website. He roundly criticizes the Reader for a variety of sins, saying editor and owner Jim Holman shows "contempt for his readers." He concludes: "The Reader is considered an alternative weekly, but it's not really much of an alternative to anything." However, not everyone agrees with Hettena's assessment, as the robust discussion unfolding in the story's comments section proves. "Thank God for the Reader and for the 164,000 members of its weekly audience who keep it alive and kicking the hell out of the bad guys in San Diego each week," says one commenter.
A recent surge in newspaper theft has a coalition of Bay Area newspapers -- including the East Bay Express and the San Francisco Bay Guardian -- asking local authorities to help pursue thieves both on the street and at the recycling businesses where they fence the stolen goods, according to the Berkeley Daily Planet. The Express is doing more than just asking cops for help, though. The Planet reports that after complaints to local police failed to result in the apprehension of a man repeatedly seen stealing papers, the alt-weekly hired a private investigator. On his first night out, the private eye caught the thief with more than 500 copies of the Express -- and nearly as many Bay Guardians -- in his truck. Express publisher Hal Brody says that stopping the thefts will take more than arresting street-level thieves -- rather, he thinks cops need to target the recycling businesses that accept the contraband. A meeting between Oakland police and local publishers to discuss how to stem the tide of theft is planned for the near future, the Planet reports.
Michael Bowen (The Pacific Northwest Inlander), Skylar Browning (Missoula Independent), Brendan Kiley (The Stranger), and Ashley Lindstrom (San Antonio Current) have been named fellows in the fourth National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater at USC's Annenberg School. The fellows will participate in a rigorous 10-day program in February with guest faculty including L.A. Weekly theater editor Steven Leigh Morris.
Bruce Brugmann is part of a delegation of the Inter American Press Association heading to the South American country to investigate the threat to press liberty posed by constitutional "reforms" proposed by President Hugo Chavez, Editor & Publisher reports.
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