Orlando police arrested the paper's classified advertising director and two account executives this afternoon on charges of aiding and abetting prostitution, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The Weekly's office was also "served notice on racketeering charges for contributing to the prostitution industry," according to the Sentinel. The charges stem from a two-year operation dubbed "Operation Weekly Shame." As part of the investigation, two female agents went undercover and presented themselves as prostitutes to three Weekly account executives, according to police. Criminal defense lawyer Daniel Aaronson says the Weekly did nothing wrong by taking adult-oriented advertisements. "The papers aren't doing anything illegal," he says. "They're taking ads. If an ad uses suggestive language, the stopping of these ads threatens the First Amendment."
Monterey County Weekly is being sued by the chemical company Suterra for referencing one of its product's "inert" ingredients, which the company claims are protected as trade secrets under federal law. The Weekly reported on health and environmental concerns related to two of the ingredients (first disclosed by the Santa Cruz Sentinel) in a story last week. On Tuesday, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge rejected the pesticide company's request for a temporary restraining order on the paper. The Weekly has counter-sued the company, asserting its First Amendment right to disseminate information in the public interest.
When New Times published a story yesterday revealing that it was the target of a grand jury probe, it acknowledged that it was exposing itself to potential criminal charges. It sure didn't take long for those charges to come to fruition. The co-authors of the piece, VVM executive editor Michael Lacey and chief executive Jim Larkin, were arrested last night at their homes in Phoenix on charges that the story revealed grand jury secrets, according to the New York Times. The East Valley Tribune reports that the arrests came at the request of the special prosecutor. "It is an extraordinary sequence of events," says Steve Suskin, legal counsel for VVM. "The arrests were not totally unexpected, but they represent an act of revenge and a vindictive response on the part of an out of control sheriff." In addition, New Times reporter Ray Stern was given a criminal citation on Thursday for disorderly conduct after an argument over taking photos of public records at the sheriff's office. "They're trying to muzzle us," editor Rick Barrs says. "This is retaliation against us. And it's not just retaliation against us, it's retaliation against the press." UPDATE: Lacey, upon being released from jail this morning, spoke with reporters. "The way that this operates is that they select someone to make an example out of, and they selected our organization," he says. "Hopefully, other media organizations will begin to speak up and speak out about what's going on here."
Utne Reader has announced the finalists for its 2007 Independent Press Awards, which honor the very best in independent media from the pool of more than 1,300 sources Utne uses to cull its content. Louisiana's Independent Weekly and Denver's Westword are nominated for Local/Regional Coverage; The Texas Observer and The Village Voice are nominated for In-Depth/Investigative Coverage; and L.A. Weekly is nominated for Best Writing. Winners will be announced in early 2008.
The alt-weekly revealed today that Maricopa County grand jury subpoenas are targeting its editors, reporters, and online readers. The inquiry stems from the paper's posting of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's home address on its site as part of a 2004 story on "America's Toughest Sheriff." By revealing the mere existence of this grand jury, New Times exposes itself to criminal penalties, but faced with what a judge deemed "highly inappropriate" behavior by prosecutors, the paper felt it had no choice but to go public. "We started this newspaper because we believed in the public's right to know," the paper's co-founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin explain. "Nothing has changed."
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