Give me a break, Matt SmithI’m starting to wonder how many times I’m going have to fight this battle.
For five weeks, as our predatory-pricing case against the SF Weekly was in trial, Andy Van De Voorde, the Denver-based hit man who works for Village Voice Media, attacked me, attacked the Guardian, attacked our witnesses and attacked the whole idea that an independent paper had the right to go to court to fight a predatory attack by a national chain.
When a San Francisco jury found (by an 11-1 margin) that VVM and its local outlet, the SF Weekly, had sold ads below cost for seven years with the intent to harm the Guardian – a violation of state law – Van De Voorde attacked the judge, the jury and the law itself.
Then when we started to talk about what the verdict meant, the hit man retailed the same old arguments all over again, in yet another blog post.
And now Matt Smith, the Weekly columnist who is often wrong on the issues but generally has some sense, has jumped in with what appears to be a preview of the arguments we can expect when the Weekly pursues its appeals.
Smith argues that the "contorted jury verdict and a pending request for an injunction against my employer could have the apparent intended effect of forcing SF Weekly to fire reporters like me."
His Theory: Because the law doesn’t allow a newspaper (or any business) to engage in predatory pricing, somehow the Weekly will lose its ability to do good journalism.
Matt, Matt, Matt: Give me a fucking break.
A San Francisco jury already heard that argument. The Weekly’s lawyers said over and over again that the Weekly was losing money only because management wanted to spend big money on reporters and editors and artist to put out a bang-up paper. When it came down to the decision, the jurors recognized that something else was going on entirely.
Since VVM (back then known as New Times) bought the SF Weekly in 1995, the paper has sold ads below the cost of producing the paper. That means the Weekly lost money every year, for 13 years. Most businesses that showed no real effort to match revenues with expenses wouldn’t last long, but in this case, the parent company, with 15 other papers to draw money from, was willing to pour more than $20 million into San Francisco to keep the Weekly afloat.
Why? Because, as the evidence showed, VVM knew that if it could win a war of attrition against a local competitor that didn’t have deep pockets, the Weekly would own the market. At that point, the paper could raise prices at will and rake in the profits.
The “we-spend-money-on-good-journalism” argument didn’t fly because the evidence showed clearly that VVM executives were obsessed with taking ads and money away from the Guardian. They wanted to crush us – not with great reporting but with great ad discounts.
And yeah, for the past few years, they’ve had an impact. If Matt Smith wants to know why the Guardian doesn’t pay its staff as much as the Weekly, the trial provided the answer: VVM intentionally depressed the price of an alternative weekly newspaper ad to the point where neither paper could make much money.
His paper had $20 million coming in from Phoenix headquarters; his editors didn’t have to worry about every damn penny they spent, because there was always the corporate piggy bank to draw on.
We had to live within our means; that meant we cut staff and couldn’t afford to pay higher salaries.
You think I liked that? You think I prefer not to pay high salaries? You think I didn’t wish I had the Weekly’s resources? You think the Guardian’s expenses were kept tight so that the owners could pocket big profits?
Matt, Matt, Matt: Give me a fucking break.
The jury heard the truth. The Guardian publishers never took any money out of the paper. We have done what any small business that wants to stay in business does: Made sure that costs didn’t exceed revenues -- revenues that kept falling thanks to Smith’s bosses and their illegal tactics.
If Mr. Smith is worried about his job, perhaps he has a small sense of what it’s been like all these years working for a small local business that’s under a predatory attack.
But here’s the reality: The SF Weekly doesn’t have to fire Matt Smith. I’d hate to see that happen. (Andy Van De Voorde, now that’s another story …)
Because the real lesson from the trial is that San Francisco could support two alternative weeklies – two profitable alternative weeklies – if one of them wasn’t trying desperately to put the other one out of business.
SF Weekly executives admitted on the stand that they could have raised ad rates and brought in more revenue (enough to pay Matt Smith all the money he’s so clearly worth). But they would have had to accept the idea that the Guardian would be more competitive at those prices and might get some more money, too, so we could pay our staff better and hire more people.
And that wasn’t in the VVM playbook.
We’re going to hear a lot in the next few months about how the Guardian wants “the government to set ad rates” and how that’s a threat to the First Amendment. But all the Guardian is asking is that the Weekly obey the law.
Both of us could save a lot of money (and pay hot-shot writers like Smith the big bucks) if our press bills were lower. And if the presses we used could just dump all their used ink and solvents into the Bay and eliminate safety rules for their workers, they’d be able to cut costs and charge us less.
But courts and lawmakers and the public has always recognized that newspapers have to abide by environmental laws, just like everyone else.
We also have to abide by OSHA rules, and the city’s health-insurance rules, and federal and state tax laws, and all sorts of other things that cost us all money. And those aren’t considered threats to the First Amendment.
Sorry, Matt: The Weekly has to play by the rules. And one of those rules is that you can’t sell below cost in an effort to harm your competitor. And if you do, you’re going to risk a lawsuit and substantial damages.
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Comments (14)
Good journalism at the Weekly? I call bullshit!
Their cover stories of late have been the angst-ridden whining of their staff (2 by Mary Spicuzza, in fact, one a lame attack on Wikipedia to get back at 'em for deleting her sister's page, another about how she dated a pack of losers) and long, sonorous pieces on music. I love how he has to go back 10 years to find some Big Story he claims saved lives or some shit.
Matt likes to think of himself as super smart, but he's just a cynical, knee-jerk recationary, who seem to think that automatically opposing everything makes him an independent thinker, when in fact he's just as brain dead as any ideologue.
And his bullshit about trying to control the Examiner's out-of-control distribution (whereby they litter my driveway with a paper I don't read do not want and have asked REPEATEDLY for it to not be delivered) is just more shit.
Maybe if they spent more time doing journalism and less time taunting and writing nasty things about the Guardian, I'd believe him. But I haven't seen anything great out of the weekly in ages.
Posted by vvmsux | March 31, 2008 07:35 PM
Link to article.
Posted by SF Weekly | April 7, 2008 10:53 PM
I agree. Good journalism and the SF Weekly are mutually exclusive. Mary Spicuzza's article about Wikipedia was especially bad. I find it kind of shocking that a newspaper would allow one of its reporters to persue a family vendetta on its pages. In the article in question, Mary Spicuzza had a 2000 word shit-fit because her sister's article got taken down from Wikipedia (http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-02-13/news/wikipedia-idiots-the-edit-wars-of-san-francisco/). Is that journalism? I note that Mary Spicuzza was forced to resign from the SF Weekly. I understand pressure for her to resign came down from the HQ in Arizona, where they have to be especially careful these days to make sure their employees behave like, you know, real journalists.
Posted by Tad | May 15, 2008 10:49 PM
From the SF Weekly website:
I edited this story [Wikipedia Idiots] and I can assure you that Mary did not get fired for this story or any other. Mary decided to leave the paper to take a job with a local documentary filmmaker. She gave her notice before the Wikipedia story was published. She disclosed to me early in the reporting process her sister's fights with Griot and her sister's role is mentioned high up in our story. Bottom line: We stand by the story.
Comment by Will Harper, Managing Editor, SF Weekly — February 26, 2008 @ 01:55PM
Posted by From the SF Weekly website: | May 18, 2008 01:54 PM
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Posted by From Wikipedia | May 20, 2008 12:52 PM
I edited this story [Wikipedia Idiots] and I can assure you that Mary did not get fired for this story or any other. Mary decided to leave the paper to take a job with a local documentary filmmaker. She gave her notice before the Wikipedia story was published. She disclosed to me early in the reporting process her sister's fights with Griot and her sister's role is mentioned high up in our story. Bottom line: We stand by the story.
Comment by Will Harper, Managing Editor, SF Weekly — February 26, 2008 @ 01:55PM
Posted by From the SF Weekly website | May 20, 2008 01:18 PM
Nice try, Will Harper. You know, San Francisco IS a small town, as they say. Everybody in journalism in this town pretty much knows what everybody else is doing. And, perforce, everybody knows the story of how Mary Spicuzza had to resign from the Weekly. Your paper, Chris, is a joke. Why don't you try delving into some of our local problems like the Guardian does instead of giving your writers free-range to play out their petty revenge fantasies?
Posted by Tad | May 20, 2008 01:32 PM
I edited this story [Wikipedia Idiots] and I can assure you that Mary did not get fired for this story or any other. Mary decided to leave the paper to take a job with a local documentary filmmaker. She gave her notice before the Wikipedia story was published. She disclosed to me early in the reporting process her sister's fights with Griot and her sister's role is mentioned high up in our story. Bottom line: We stand by the story.
Comment by Will Harper, Managing Editor, SF Weekly — February 26, 2008 @ 01:55PM
http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-02-13/news/wikipedia-idiots-the-edit-wars-of-san-francisco
Posted by From the SF Weekly website | May 20, 2008 06:00 PM
What is the best way to contact the owner of this blog?
Posted by Anonymous | May 22, 2008 03:19 PM
What is the best way to contact the owner of this blog?
Posted by Anonymous | May 22, 2008 03:21 PM
What is the best way to contact the purveyor of this grog?
Posted by Anonymous | May 25, 2008 02:56 PM
They've been contacted.
Posted by Don't worry Griot | May 25, 2008 10:04 PM
They've been contacted.
Posted by Don't worry Griot | May 25, 2008 10:06 PM
I thought Mary Spicuzz's article in the Weekly was superb. I have had a similar situation, not on Wikipedia, but on an online message board, of somebody persistently berating me. I was wondering if I could expose my personal vendetta in the Weekly like Spicuzza did. I would write an article under the guise of objectivity and try to track this offending person down. How about it? The Weekly wouldn't even have to pay me to write the article (as long as it let me use its IT resources to track the guy down). In fact, I would pay the Weekly to let me publish the article. How much do you suppose the Weekly charged Mary Spicuzza?
Posted by Alphonse | June 13, 2008 08:38 AM