How Will the Bay Guardian/SF Weekly Ruling Impact Other VVM Papers?
By AAN Staff
january 11, 2010 01:00 pm
Last week, a San Francisco Superior Court commissioner
granted the
San Francisco Bay Guardian's request to place a lien on assets of
SF Weekly's parent company, as the
Guardian attempts to collect millions of dollars it was awarded in 2008's predatory-pricing trial. (The case is being appealed by the
Weekly.) While
the Guardian says it is "exploring the possible sale" of one or more of Village Voice Media's papers, reaction from several of those papers was relatively muted.
Westword editor Patricia Calhoun tells the
Denver Daily News she thinks it's highly unlikely that her paper will be impacted in any way. "This is a lawsuit that I'm sure our lawyers will resolve," she says. Meanwhile, the
Seattle Weekly gives the
Guardian a tongue-in-cheek look at some of the paper's assets it could seize, and MinnPost's David Brauer
wonders if the ruling could hurt
City Pages. His take? It's not likely, but "VVM had better start winning in court ... or we'll all have to start taking this a lot more seriously."