AAN News
Judge Rules Bay Guardian's Suit Against SF Weekly Can Go to Trial
After hearing arguments on SF Weekly's three motions for summary judgment, Superior Court Judge Richard A. Kramer ruled Thursday that the San Francisco Bay Guardian's predatory pricing lawsuit against the Weekly and Village Voice Media can go to trial. The jury trial is now scheduled to begin in January. Read more from the Weekly and the Bay Guardian.
San Francisco Bay Guardian | SF Weekly |
10-29-2007 10:24 am |
Industry News
SF Weekly's Fake Story on Barry Bonds Causes a Stirnew
"Steroids Confidential," penned by newbie Weekly writers Nic Foit and Ira Tes (anagrams of "fiction" and "satire"), promises to tell the "deepest secrets of the trainer behind baseball's new home run king," and it certainly delivers. Among the story's anecdotes: In 2002, Bonds "injected human growth hormone directly into his genitals;" in 2003, he "suddenly began lactating, forcing doctors to excise his mammary glands;" and he "now supplements his diet with 'Barry's brew,' a homemade high-energy drink made of elk semen." SFist sniffed out the fake story last week: "The anecdote about Bonds lactating from his steroid-enhanced breasts in the dugout is where we were like, 'heeeeey, wait a minute!'" But famed blogger Josh Wolf didn't take the Weekly's joke so lightly. "Satire is an integral part of the press, but it is of critical importance that readers are able to recognize where the 'real news' ends and the fiction begins," Wolf writes at CNET. "While 'Steroids Confidential' starts out in left-field and expands into the absurd, there's no 'gotcha' to reveal to the reader that it's all just a ruse."
SFist | CNET |
10-02-2007 8:26 am |
Industry News
Alt-Weeklies Win Three Regional SPJ Awardsnew
The San Francisco Bay Guardian's G.W. Schulz won "the coveted Public Service award" for his coverage of MediaNews Group's purchase of nearly all Bay Area daily newspapers. SPJ's panel of judges noted that the Bay Guardian "demonstrated by example the value of diversity in news media ownership." Eliza Strickland's examination of questionable practices at an expensive cooking school and how California has failed to regulate for-profit schools for SF Weekly won for investigative reporting, while East Bay Express' Kara Platoni took home the award for feature writing for her piece on gun violence and gun availability. The Society of Professional Journalists' Northern California Chapter will honor the winners at a Nov. 8 dinner.
Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter |
09-25-2007 8:16 am |
Honors & Achievements
SF Weekly Moves to Dismiss SFBG Lawsuitnew
Writing for the defendant newspaper and its parent company, Village Voice Media, Will Harper reports that the Weekly said it sold ads below cost for "pro-competitive" reasons like generating new sales and "increas(ing) the customer base in a severely depressed market." VVM's motion, which was filed last week in response to the Bay Guardian's Oct. 2004 lawsuit, also asserted that the newspaper chain never engaged in a conspiracy to put its Bay Area competitor out of business. And in a unique counter-argument, the Weekly claimed that by filing suit, the Bay Guardian is trying to force it to reduce editorial expenses in order to adhere to a business model that relies heavily on freelancers and unpaid interns, instead of full-time reporters. THE BAY GUARDIAN'S REPORT: Judge advises attorneys to prepare for October trial even as summary-judgment motion is filed.
SF Weekly |
07-05-2007 11:31 am |
Industry News
SF Weekly: The Nation 'Call[s] Bullshit on Itself'new
Matt Smith writes that this week's issue of The Nation, which features Jon Wiener's lament about changes that have taken place at LA Weekly since the paper changed hands in 2006, "reads as if were (sic) a schizophrenic-produced theme issue on your host, Village Voice Media." According to Smith, the July 16 issue of the weekly magazine juxtaposes Wiener's criticisms of the "staff cuts, heavy workload and misdirected investigative talent" at VVM with "another 3,000-word-plus story whose central thrust is based largely around Village Voice Media original reporting." In the latter, Liza Featherstone uses documents revealed in April by SF Weekly as a basis for her reporting on labor boss Andy Stern.
SF Weekly |
06-29-2007 8:48 am |
Industry News
Finally! Alt-Weeklies Tied to U.S. Attorneys Scandalnew
SF Weekly's October 2006 cover story about the detached management style of former U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan turned up in one of the emails released in the Justice Department's latest document dump. "Thought you might be interested in this; It's from a local weekly," Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis wrote to several colleagues as he forwarded Martin Kuz's tale of mismanagement and upheaval within the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco. According to Kuz, "while the other seven deposed U.S. attorneys earned mostly high marks for their work, Ryan arguably deserved his fate."
SF Weekly |
03-27-2007 3:30 pm |
Industry News
Trial Date in SFBG Lawsuit Against VVM Pushed Backnew
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
03-14-2007 9:24 am |
Industry News
Village Voice Media Taps New Law Firm in Bay Guardian Suitnew
The parent company of SF Weekly and East Bay Express hired local litigation specialists Kerr & Wagstaffe to replace Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffein in the predatory-pricing lawsuit brought against those two papers by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Kerr & Wagstaffe is the third firm involved in the defense of the lawsuit, set to go to trial in mid-July, reports Legal Pad, a blog focusing on California law.
Legal Pad |
02-21-2007 1:04 pm |
Industry News
Bay Guardian Pricing Lawsuit Set for Julynew
A Superior Court Judge has declined to delay the trial in the San Francisco Bay Guardian's predatory pricing suit against its two main competitors, Village Voice Media papers SF Weekly and East Bay Express. The Guardian charges the two weeklies with selling ads below cost in an effort to put it out of business.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
12-20-2006 1:53 pm |
Industry News
SF Weekly Reveals Cops Checked Reporters' Phone Records
The San Francisco Police Department has admitted that it secretly searched the phone records for calls made from the press room at the city's Hall of Justice, the local NBC affiliate reports. The snooping was first revealed in a Sept. 27 SF Weekly article by A.C. Thompson. "Dealing with a leak problem of its own in 2003, the police department used HP-style tactics, covertly examining the phone records -- reflecting 2,478 phone calls -- of journalists covering the department," Thompson wrote. "By doing so, the SFPD could quickly identify any anonymous tipsters or inside sources within the department who communicated with the reporters." The department spokesperson told SF Weekly that the investigation was legal because the department owned the phone lines that were involved.
09-28-2006 10:44 am |
Industry News
SF Weekly Writer Exposes CIA 'Torture Taxi' in New Book
"When you talk about secrecy and indefinite detention, the problem is bigger than most people realize," SF Weekly Staff Writer A.C. Thompson tells In These Times magazine. Thompson has co-authored a new book, Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights, with Trevor Paglen, an expert on clandestine military installations. The pair also discussed the book on the Sept. 15 Democracy Now! program, where Thompson told interviewer Amy Goodman, "I've written about police abuse in America for many years and about people being abused in American prisons. But the sort of similarity of the stories we heard from prisoners [in CIA facilities], the intensity of them, it kind of took us aback a little bit, and it was pretty gripping."
09-27-2006 6:56 am |
Industry News
Village Voice Media Writers Tapped for Clarion Awards
The winners of the Clarion Awards were recently announced, and Patricia Calhoun, editor of Westword, took first place in the Regular Opinion/Editorial category, small circulation division, for her weekly column. Houston Press Staff Writer Todd Spivak also won for his feature story "Against All Odds" in the small circulation division, and SF Weekly Staff Writer Cristi Hegranes won for her feature story "The Identity Makers" in the large circulation division. Both men and women are eligible for the Clarion Awards, which are presented by The Association for Women in Communications.
09-22-2006 8:39 am |
Industry News
Investigative Ace A.C. Thompson Moves to SF Weekly
06-08-2006 6:18 pm |
Press Releases
SF Weekly Loses Warfield Signagenew
San Francisco Bay Guardian (2nd item) |
02-22-2006 10:01 am |
Industry News
Harmon Leon Blames SF Weekly Editor for Misleading Columns
Leon speaks freely in a vitriolic interview with SFist, a blog that covered SF Weekly's termination of his regular "Infiltrator" column. Leon blames Editor Tom Walsh for the two misleading columns that got him in trouble and says, "Tom Walsh is the worst editor I've ever worked for. The reason I say this, an editor's job is to make a writer look good, not to make people question a writer's credibility." Nevertheless, Leon claims that he is "not bitter about the whole thing" because he "enjoyed working with John Mecklin" and is "happy with the body of work" he produced.
02-21-2006 3:39 pm |
Industry News
