And the people who are looking for those stories make up a lucrative market for advertisers.

His conclusion, after attending much of the trial and viewing much of the economic evidence: the reason the Guardian was losing revenue was that the Weekly had systematically depressed the price of display ads in the alternative weekly marketplace. And the chain paper was able to do that because of its deep pockets.

Numerous witnesses agreed that the Weekly could have raised its rates and made a profit. But that would have made it possible for the Guardian to compete for those clients — and VVM wanted the market to itself.

In the end, the jury got the message: the Guardian has been hurting badly all these years not because of any external factor but because a rich competitor was selling below cost.
That, Johnson testified, was exactly how predatory chains operate. "It happens," he said, "all the time."

The Guardian was (well) represented by Ralph Alldredge, Rich Hill and E. Craig Moody