The Village Voice seems like an unlikely source for a rant against “the political left” and “anti-competitive business practices. ” Yet the enraged parent of the SF Weekly just couldn’t stop itself for taking a couple of verbal swings following the CA Supreme Court’s refusal to hear their appeal against the $21 million judgment awarded their competitor the SF Bay Guardian. Below, the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club puts the story in context, then comes the “it’s a sad day for consumers” editorial that appeared in the SF Weekly from the pen of Andy Van De Voorde, a Village Voice Media executive and spokesman, a fellow who neither minces words nor, we must assume, imbibes martinis.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
SF Weekly lashes out at ‘the political left’
Andy VanDeVoorde, a Village Voice Media executive and spokesman, wrote in the SF Weekly: “The California courts have held fast to a dubious principle: That endorsing politically correct ‘anti-chain’ sentiment is a more important judicial goal than protecting free-market competition.”
The problem with that claim, according to the Chron’s Bob Egelko, is that: “the judge who presided over the trial in San Francisco Superior Court, and more than doubled the jury’s damage award against the Weekly, was Marla Miller — appointed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The appeals court justice who wrote the ruling upholding the verdict was Robert Dondero — first appointed to the bench by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, and named to the appeals court by Schwarzenegger. And of the six Supreme Court justices who voted to deny a hearing on the Weekly’s appeal, five were appointed by Republican governors.”
Oops.
Meanwhile, negotiations between the two sides continue as the Guardian attempts to get its $21 million. A judge earlier ordered that the SF Weekly share its ad revenues with its competitor, though that is a drop in the bucket compared to what the Guardian is owed.
http://sfppc.blogspot.com/2010/11/sf-weekly-lashes-out-at-political-left.html
Village Voice Media Response to Ruling in California Below-Cost Pricing Suit
For more than a century, the California Supreme Court has interpreted antitrust law as protecting consumers from high prices, not protecting the profits of entrenched market leaders who fear competition. The Supreme Court’s refusal yesterday to follow Justice Joyce Kennard’s wishes and hear this appeal turns a century of pro-consumer California antitrust law on its ear.
No one disputes that, on identical facts, this case would have been dismissed in summary judgment in federal court, where nearly all California antitrust cases are litigated.
The only advertiser who testified in this trial testified on behalf of SF Weekly. There was no evidence — none — to dispute that Bay Area advertisers, large and small, benefited from the Weekly‘s lower prices. There was no evidence that the Weekly ever charged a dime less than a glutted market was willing to pay for advertising. And there is no dispute that by employing professional journalists with health and other employee benefits, instead of freelancers and student interns, the Weekly was punished under the below-cost sales statute.
This is a sad day for consumers who deserve the lower prices that only aggressive competition provides. And it provides a stark and oppressive warning to those who choose to produce quality journalism and absorb its higher costs: that the California courts will draw no distinction in a predatory pricing case between the higher cost of professional journalists and the lower cost of freelancers and wire copy.
Even so, we have no intention of leaving San Francisco. We choose instead to stay, and to continue competing.
“Neither judges with gavels nor editors with martinis (or delusions fueled by martinis) can tell people which website or newspaper to read,” Village Voice Media Holdings executive editor Michael Lacey said. “As journalists, we will continue the fight in San Francisco.”