News-Press Attacks Roberts
The Daily Sound has an early story on the reference in the News-Press today about supposed child pornography found on Jerry Robert's computer...from what I know about News-Press IT practices, however, it could have just as easily been planted by anyone. Opposing counsel only needs to ask if reporters had a login required for their work station -- my understanding unless one of you corrects me is that they did not. If this is the case, the night janitor could have put the files on his computer. If McCaw and Company have known about this hard drive for so long -- why the court action now? Their suit against Roberts is more than a few months old. I guess the hard drive recovery company didn't want to be in the middle of this kind of mess....
Labels: Ampersand Publishing, Jerry Roberts
posted by Sara De la Guerra | 4/22/2007 01:17:00 PM
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Knowing that Jerry Roberts is fighting cancer, it would be easy to think Wendy McCaw is trying to add to his stress by putting these unsavory allegations on the front page. Too bad he's not a 4-legged creature--he'd be treated much more kindly! BTW Sara, you wrote "Opposing council"--I think you meant "counsel," unless you're sending a subliminal message about our current city council. ;-)
Twice in one week harping! Damn! Of course I know better :)
I wrote that one a bit too fast and that word doesn't flag a spell check. Thanks for letting me know.
Roberts answers this absurd accusation at a 3 p.m. press conference today ... stay tuned.
Representatives and management of the News Press are on legal record for extreme embellishment and prevarication of facts. What valid reason exists now to believe their current attack has any ring of truth or integrity to it at all?
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1:39 PM -- upon reflection, I've deleted your comment as it could be misinterpeted...this is an emotionally charged issue -- let's be more careful.
I have no way of knowing whether 2:47 PM works at DriveSavers...please take it with a grain of salt or two.
Sara, don't feel too bad--I notice these types of errors in the Indy all the time, even in print. But I don't bother telling them. ;-)
There is a fact that he himself reported in the New Press. He, Travis Armstrong, reported that he, Travis Armstrong, had read Barney Brantingham's email that was arriving on his computer (that is on B.B.'s computer) after he had resigned. Just a fact.
The other one is that I plan to finally cancel my SBNP subscription tomorrow morning. This absurd trash newspaper and its incredibly petty owners and editors simply are just too overwhelmingly disgusting for me to tolerate for the pretty pictures and the few decent workers who remain. BTW, love that byline on the story! Any guesses as to who wrote it?
I'm boB
This is an unspeakably sleazy attack on Jerry Roberts in the most disreputable fashion possible.
Wendy is truly a piece of work.
It is interesting that the lead headline( if that is the term) is smaller than the next headline "Roberts denies involvement" Maybe Jerry still has friends in the print shop. Or maybe it's just another screwup. But when these charges are proven false who will still stand with these sick chickens at the News-Press? What do you say Dr. Laura? Does it pass your smell test?
Before publishing a story accusing Mr. Roberts of child pornography, the Newpress should have been very sure of their research and results. This is personal destruction at its worst. Libel perhaps?
Why publish the story only to say the evidence is not in yet but they're looking at it? It is a pure violation of ethics without a doubt. Poison.
I am not a journalist. I am not a former member of the Newspress. I am a citizen activist and long time member of the Santa Barbara community. I am very saddened that it's come to this.
Mr. Roberts always treated me with the greatest civility and acted professional at all times. He never spoke against Travis, Wendy, or the Newspress. His quest was journalistic excellence. And believe me, I sent him plenty of emails asking for explanations for stories and positions. He always treated me as someone important--a Newspress reader.
First, it took me a bit to understand the series of events but from the Sound article it looks like:
1. NP was scouring the hard drives of Robert's (and likely everyone elses) for something (Sara's identity??)
2. They sent the hard drives to Drivesavers to see if they could recover deleted files and gain more info (oh they are disparate to ID you Sara!)
3. Drivesavers finds porn, notifies police (and NP) and gives drives to police.
4. Now NP wants the drives back to see what else was there - and maybe to even further sully Robert's name?
Do I have this right?
If so, then Sara, there was no getting in the middle for Drivesavers at all - they just must have immediately given the drive to the police.
On another note, there are many ways things can get onto a computer. I work at the university and a few years back the IT notified us that they had detected a computer had probably been hacked through the internet. It was probably being used to store and distribute movies or porn. No one using the computer had any idea anything was happening.
It would be interesting to have ALL (including the Wendy's) computer checked.
Although the New-Press often ignores accusations about its operations or McCaw, they have no problem making public the proceedings of an ongoing police investigation against someone they consider their enemy. After reading the 'News-Press Staff Report' (I borrowed a rain-soaked copy of a neighbors paper), I found it interesting that the News-Press failed to disclose in the article that their parent company is currently suing Roberts for $25 million in damages. This failure of disclosure is not a mistake or oversight, and is unethical.
Not only is the absence of a mention of the lawsuit an outrage, the entire report is in bad taste and highly questionable. False accusations of very serious subjects have been made in the past (see this article for an idea of the consequences such accusations can carry) and the News-Press should take more care. Perhaps they have forgotten people are innocent until proven guilty. I assume they intend for people to mistrust Roberts' character and stop donating to his legal defense. They forget that it is their credibility that is shot.
The News Press has sunk to a new low, more disgusting than even their worse critics could have imagined. I stopped taking the paper months ago, but they delivered one today anyhow. The only "local news" stories were on UCSB students collecting algae, which merited half the front page, a city college student raising funds, and the anonymous character asassination piece making completely unsupported inuendos about Jerry Roberts. The story was so sleazy even Steepleton wouldn't sign it. Byline or not, it has Wendy written all over it. This sort of trash almost makes Travis look like a gentleman. I wouldn't ruin good fish by wrapping them in this rag.
OMG this is disgusting. I just read the accounts at the Independent's site. Far worse than I could even have imagined. I wrote an earlier post saying that it was easy to hack a computer. But to find out now that they had purchased the computer USED, others had used it before him, and then they only 'report' (read SMEAR) Roberts.
This is truly horrible and anyone ANYONE who continues to support the paper either by buying it or advertising in it should be so completely ashamed.
The Inde has it's article from the press conference up. Very worthwhile reading. McCaw has once again acheived a new low in journalistic integrity.
The Drivesavers commenter needs to send an email separately to this blog host, as a way to verify the identity and accuracy of the comment about the dates and times of the files. Email to:
saradelaguerra@yahoo.com
This attempt at an article was written by Steepleton (or Armstrong), obviously, and he has no other by-lines in the NewsPress edition today. The only legitimate reason to give the "staff writer" by-line is to dilute an abundance of too many other by-lines on a page with the same author name.
The other reason for a "staff writer" by-line is to hide some bullshit and immunize the author from a counter-claim, the same way it was hidden last January in the NewsPress own news articles on the federal court hearing about the complaints to NLRB. We all know what the Judge determined then about the credibility of the NewsPress staff testimony, now by the same people who pretend to be credible news writers and editorialists.
Of course, what is more-than-conspicuously left out of this article is how Ampersand is currently suing Roberts for $25 million. This allegation against Roberts is just a colossally pathetic and stupid attempt somehow to gain more leverage against Roberts. However, what will result is that desperate stupidity of the allegation only will give more leverage for Roberts against Ampersand, big time.
According to news accounts published today, the computer drive on which the files were found was obtained used prior to when Roberts had access to that computer, and during his tenure at NewsPress anyone else there could have accessed that computer.
Ampersand and the hirelings obviously are not consulting their own attorneys and strategic advisors.
Roberts now has become a hugely sympathetic figure more than he already was, and now he has gigantic facts and leverage to fight back from a vastly stronger position.
Just when you think the News-Press could not sink any lower, it manages to do so. Today's front page article slinging mud at Jerry Roberts is the latest outrage.
For months, the NP has claimed that its disputes with former employees are an "internal matter." From that position, it has aggressively attacked those who have commented on the mass resignations and firings. Yet, when the paper has scurrilous innuendo to spread around about a former employee, it puts it on the front page. What hypocrisy! What an abuse of its public platform!
If you read the article carefully, you discover there is actually no "news" in it. All the pertinent events occurred months ago. The police and DA closed the books on the allegations, but it appears that the SBN-P is trying to keep them alive in any way possible.
Is this story an effort to impugn Roberts' reputation before the arbitration hearing on the SBN-P's claim against him for $25 million? Is the SBN-P using its public platform to gain an advantage in this "private" dispute?
Interestingly, the article is signed "Staff Report." Is is possible that no SBN-P reporter or editor was willing to put his or her name on this hit piece? Perhaps journalistic ethics and professionalism are still alive in some small corner of the paper.
Santa Barbarans should send a message to the News-Press owner that these shameful tactics will only exacerbate the alienation that many people now feel toward this "newspaper." And probably result in a sizeable damage award for Mr. Roberts in his likely defamation lawsuit for the injury to his reputation.
anon 247--- I presume by your assertion then that you have somehow established what Roberts' "normal working hours" were and/or that he never accessed his computer outside a 9-5 timeframe?!?!?! Please........let's ALL wait for more info, either before convicting---or exonerating---the one person who had PRIMARY access to this computer. I don't know about you all, but even though other people have on occassion had access to my computer--at work and at home---- it would take a lot for me to miss 15,000 images---porn or no porn........the suggestion that someone "spammed" them is kinda ludicrous. I say the jury is still out on this one. NewsPress jumped the gun for sure. But the apologists don't need to come crawling out of the woodwork just yet, either
One wonders if Travesty had access to that specific computer
The way you miss 15,000 images is that they had been deleted, but not wiped. Deleted in the way that you drag something into the trash and the directory listing gets eliminated. The average user can't "see" the "trashed" file because it has no "name", but it remains on the hard drive. Only when something gets written over it does it BEGIN" to disappear, but even then only partially. Generally things need to be wiped many many times to be liminated. So 7:02 pm you are so wise, but in fact you demonstrate your ignorance of all things computer.
I'm boB
Its interesting the NY Times has chimed in on this did a google search to read more and the three stories so far were two from the Indy and then a NY Times article which wasnt treating Wendy so nicely.
A interesting read...
I presume by your assertion then that you have somehow established what Roberts' "normal working hours" were and/or that he never accessed his computer outside a 9-5 timeframe?!?!?! Please........let's ALL wait for more info, either before convicting---or exonerating---the one person who had PRIMARY access to this computer.
Perhaps you should learn how a computer works.
According to police, there was no timestamp on the deleted images - meaning, there's no way to determine what YEAR those files were downloaded, much less what day/time.
I don't know about you all, but even though other people have on occassion had access to my computer--at work and at home---- it would take a lot for me to miss 15,000 images---porn or no porn........the suggestion that someone "spammed" them is kinda ludicrous.
You could miss 15,000 deleted images that you didn't even know were there. Deleting a file doesn't erase all traces of it from your drive - it merely marks the drive's directory entries as writable. In other words, deleted files remain on the disk until another file is written over them (and it's next to impossible to determine when that will happen). That's why you're always supposed to zero all data on drive before disposing of it (usually, to stop identity theft). Recovering deleted files, as long as they haven't been written over already, is relatively simple with the right tools.
I say the jury is still out on this one.
Well, everyone, including the police, disagrees with you 100% on that one.
But if we're keeping all options on the table, could the News-Press given Roberts a tainted computer on purpose, just in case?
Let me get this straight. The Billionaire Divorcee of a high tech Billionaire was buying used computers for her Newspaper's publisher? That's what the story appears to be. Used computers for the best newspaper it could be?
As someone still reading the NP, the Roberts article was pretty benign and neutral -not like all this prior hyperventilating is leading one to think.
Sure it was petty and mean to only mention his name as a known owner, but it was factual and they listed plenty of exculpatory possibilities in the article too.
But facts are facts. It was a computer known to have been used by JR, and there was porn allegedly discovered on this very same machine and the article made it clear there could be a lot of nexxus failures between the two facts.
But those were facts and facts are still okay? And the article begged more questions about the cleaning lady, than the computer. Chill.
(Heh, heh - using my computer for a couple of hours and only now --now, when I log on to blogabarbara do I get my Norton message that there "was an attempt to attack my computer". So odd. Gee - do you suppose it was someone wanting to unload their unwanted porn on MY computer. Tsk.)
But back to Jerry, it was a snarky piece, but it definitely left a lot of reasons not to suspect he had anything to do with this later discovery on a machine he had access to.
Again, primary interest in the article was about the need to go digging into this computer in the first place. That was really what was key in this piece. Aren't you sorry you missed it?
Jerry's cool - and the NP did not hang him out to dry. And the article has a lot to teach all of us about potential cyber-treachery. Glad they published the topic in general because I learned how vulnerable anyone can be in this Brave New World.
By your Good Works shall ye be Known. Namaste. There is not a shred here in this article that could walk in the front door of a court room with out attached life support.
Roberts could be guilty. Bottom line is that there was no arrest or charges filed and no conviction. Until then it isn't news and not fit for publishing. I canceled the News Press months ago after a couple years of Armstrongs twisted editorials. It came to a head after the departures and dismissals and it became clear that the SBNP was clearly in a integral downward spiral. For those who are waiting for the SBNP to get better.....well... it is not going to happen. I called after hours and left a voice message cancelling my subscription. I requested a prorated refund of my subscription. Please call the SBNP and whether you speak to a live body or voice mail on the other end be nice..it is not their fault.
The computer needs to be turn over to the FBI Forensic Department. They have employees that work on computers to find out who has been logged on and off a computer.
What will it take for MacCaw and Company to stop this bleeding? I always though there was some good in everyone but now I'm starting to have my doubts.
Something is rotten in the state of the newspress.
I've been in journalism for more than 20 years, and this is the sleaziest, most debased thing I have ever seen in a newspaper. I am ashamed for my profession.
The jury isn't out on what Wendy is using a once prestigious newspaper for.... her self inflicted megaton public disgraces are yet to come. Mr. Roberts has a family, I hope they can all sue. I thought Alec Baldwin was the worst adult example. I can't even speak, she is so horrendous.
Any advertiser or loyalist who supports this in even the most passive way needs to be called out. Phil Spector was a lone nut. Wendy has accomplices. Character assasination of this order deserves a long sentence and more then hundreds of millions paid. If that gossipy Brit stays with this, anyone who smooches in anyway is guilty.
All I can say about this matter is that based on my firsthand experience when I started as Assistant City Editor at the News-Press on Oct. 30, 2006, there was absolutely no security on my computer after tech support set it up for me. And I had no idea who may have accessed what sites before I even started using the computer.
Even though I was allowed to input a password which was supposed to restrict access to only myself, I knew not to assume anything, so I tested it.
I was able to simply click on my e-mail icon on the desktop monitor without using my password and open up my e-mails, reading everything I had sent and received the previous day. I was also able to send e-mails to others as if they were coming from me, and access the Internet with impunity.
This greatly concerned me so I called tech support and urgently requested that they fix this breach of security immediately.
I knew that anyone could simply turn on my computer and read my e-mails and send out e-mails posing as me. I figured a worst-case scenario would be for someone to e-mail a death threat to the president of the U.S. and I'd have the Secret Service knocking down my door the next day.
The News-Press is in a peculiar situation claiming that any employee committed any wrongdoing on any computer unless it can prove who was using the computer at an exact time and date, and that the users had access security.
Now the News-Press may also have to prove it had an absence of malice in reporting these allegations against Jerry Roberts, or else a jury may find it guilty of libel and slander and possibly award Roberts a huge financial verdict.
My 30-year journalism career has included serious investigative reporting, but I always made sure I had my facts confirmed by several sources before going to print.
Based on my experiences, I would have opposed running this story considering the shaky information supporting its allegations. Since there is no byline on the story, it shows me that the News-Press itself lacked the confidence to reveal who even wrote it. It makes me wonder if non-journalist attorneys or PR folks spun it.
It appears that the current News-Press managers-, reporters- and editors-in-training have to learn the principles of journalism ethics the hard way, via a steady stream of courtroom trials, judges' findings and possibly even juries' verdicts, while depriving the community of professional local news coverage.
Anyone who has ever worked at the News-Press knows how rag-tag the computers are for everyone in the newsroom. But especially those who did not design pages or work in the photo dept. You can't even view most web sites or download images because the computers crash -- again and again and again.
That's why there is ONE machine that everyone had to share in order to have access to the Internet to view stuff that required an up-to-date browser or enough memory to do so.
Give me a break! 15,000 images of child porn! There's no way anyone who was using that computer could have even clicked on the images to view them without the computer crashing. Those NP machines have no power to speak of and the browsers have been outdated for years and still are!!
Fess up evil ones. We know those images were planted before the machine was sent out to Drivesavers.
Who had the Means, Motive, and Opportunity to install the contraband files on that computer?
From Lompoc Record and Santa Maria Times (article by Tom Bolton):
"Merenbach [Roberts attorney] highlighted a portion of Hanson's letter that noted the images on the hard drive remain “contraband,” and illegal to possess, regardless of whether charges are ever filed in the case.
“The News-Press is attempting to gain possession of contraband,” Merenbach said."
From New York Times:
"The article did not note that Ms. McCaw and Mr. Roberts were in the throes of legal arbitration of claims each has filed against the other. Ms. McCaw has filed a claim of $25 million against Mr. Roberts for breach of contract; he has filed a counterclaim of $10 million for damages.
In his statement at the news conference, Mr. Roberts said he believed the article was an attempt to undercut his credibility during arbitration over the competing legal claims."
From Los Angeles Times (Kay Saillant article):
"Raul Gil, former News-Press systems director, stated in a signed declaration in January that Ampersand was in possession of the computer for a week before it was sent to the data recovery firm."
The News-Press was supposed to go to an upgraded pagination system in 2006, which required upgrading to Mac G5s. But then folks quit and were fired.
As a result, we're still using the old pagination system and old Macs, which need more and more repairs.
When a hard drive breaks, one is pulled out of another, unused computer.
We don't know where these hard drives came from, who used them before and what was put on them.
We could have all kinds of deleted crap on our hard drives and not even know it!
So would all of these apologists be twisting themselves into such knots to come to any other former employee's defense with all their "expert" computer/tech knowledge if said person's computer was loaded with thousands of child porn images? Wouldn't you demand more info? Wait for the FBI to finish its investigation? Wait for the police to interview said subject? Let's say, for instance, it was Travis---would we be reading such rampant and vocal DENIAL in play? and where is the outrage over the fact that such an enormous amount [though typical in child porn cases] of child porn was found deleted from a computer of a community institution? Amazing what can happen when otherwise rational and intelligent people are blinded by a fierce loyalty or rather blinded by a common hatered [deserved or otherwise] of in this case the N-P management. Similar to what happened when the Catholic church scandals first became public---denial, denial, denial on the parts of "the faithful" who just refused to believe a person they'd put on a pedestal could ever stray.
Recognize the power of the press. It hurts really bad when one of your own gets wounded by actually even a balanced factual article that had the potential to lead to an unfortunate connections.
But you fail to realize you do this all the time when you write your articles and it wounds someone you don't know. 99% of people who end up reading about themselves or organizations in even the Olde News Press walked away with tire treads all over their faces, while you went merrily on to tomorrows news and the "neutral" hit piece reporting of the facts is yesterday's news.
The only difference with this article is you are seeing this all too common corruptable power hit one of your own.
Pay a little more attention to all the others you wounded who never had the chance to fight back and you will perhaps appreciate better the power of the press.
Hanlde with care. You hurt a lot of people a lot of the time. Savor this moment carefully when you see yourself on the other side of the equation.
I canceled my subscription to the NP long ago, and discard it whenever I see it lying around.
But now what they have done is so much more than disgraceful. It's repugnant and borders on criminal.
I think it's time to list the major advertisers here and boycott them. I certainly will.
From Daily Nexus:
"According to Roberts’ sworn statements, on January 29, Montano asked Gil to draft a statement about the sequence of events relating to Roberts’ hard drive. After Gil submitted his statement, Montano requested that Gil remove a paragraph indicating his “uncertainty” regarding the chain of custody of the computer. Gil did not comply, and submitted the statement in its entirety. Two days later, Ampersand Publishing management confronted him about talking to Jerry Roberts, and Gil submitted his resignation."
10:37 PM & 8:14 AM, The more this sinks in, the more critical it is to reach advertisers and all who use this corrupt former paper for announcements and social events. We have the names of the major abettors who write and conspire these vile deeds. Travis is not alone. Do they ever let up on attempting to destroy their perceived enemies?
Borders on criminal? I don't think it borders. When they are caught is something else. Have the N-P PR-lawyers, who also read blogs for Wendy, made statements? If they were in on that move, wouldn't they have started spinning yesterday?
Letter writing campaigns, boycotts more protests. If people like Oprah ignore this, SHAME.
Denial,this has nothing to do with loyalty to Roberts, and you surely know this. The outrage here is directed at the News-Press' reckless disregard for truth in its disgusting attempt to destroy the reputation of a person in the community.
The fact is that there is not a single shred of evidence anywhere that Roberts was responsible for those images. It's a fact that the N-P held the hard drive for a week before contacting the cops. It's a fact that said cops declined to do anything because there was no way to tell who put those images there because it was a used by multiple people before Roberts got it.
Look, no responsible paper -- or one without a pathologically vindictive owner -- would go with this story. It was misleading, factually deficient and without any news value whatsoever. That's why there's outrage.
This one has made it to the technical gossip site... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/23/editor_decries/
Next comes Slashdot, which will be a good test for the Independents new web site ;)
My heart just breaks for Jerry Roberts and his family. I am disgusted by the SBNP! Someone PLEASE publish a list of advertisers, so I know which businesses to boycott.
I hope Dr. Laura weighs in on this one, I think even she would be appalled!
Just got back from the Laundromat where I found a used News-Press dated today. Had a little powdered soap and water on it, but it was the cleanest News-Press I've seen in a long time. ;)
Question: The Independent's Web site last night stated that a reporter from the News-Press attended Jerry Roberts' news conference Sunday in which he gave his side of the story.
If that was so, why did the News-Press not run its reporter's story in today's paper?
Hey, "Denial Can Be Dangerous," what do you have to say about the News-Press denying readers the coverage of Roberts' news conference? How do you justify that?
David,
Thanks for that link to the Register. It'll be interesting should Slashdot pick this up.
Surely a new low (inconceivably low) even for McCaw. Yes, she owns the paper; since she's systematically destroying her own property, she MUST be nuts. The woman and her crew have no business anywhere near public media. She should start a blog!
Let's all write letters of protest to the NP about the Roberts article and see if any get printed.
If Dr. Laura doesn't weigh in clear and just, she will be a silent co-conspirator. She's made a big deal about being a moral person and said she'd quit if she was censored. She must speak out on Thursday or be at one with this abhorrence. Any bets which way she'll go?
Dr. Laura and Wendy are probably discussing this matter over a fine dinner of salad (hold the prosciutto for Wendy), accompanied by a fun sparkling rose from the cellars of Chateau Nipper (who will drink no wine before its time). My bet is that Laura will keep her mouth shut on this, as Wendy has afforded her the opportunity to go from just another b-list celeb resident to (in Laura's mind) the mother of all Santa Barbara news hounds. (Is there a term for a female hound)?
Dr. L's going to bend over backwards not to offend her benefactor, and to hell with the obvious slant and bias in the story, to hell with the failure to contact Roberts before running it, and to hell with the obvious fact that if Travis, Steepledork or Nipper were the user of this same computer, the story never would have happened.
NOT A SHRINK DR. If Laura rants, it'll be the children angle. No mention of Attorney General Albert Gonzales implications. Her other passions are son and troops. Tomorrow Washingon, D.C. 4/24/07 there will be hearings of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Soldiers and families seeking truth. Three Northern California families Pvt.Jessica Lynch & the Tillman family.
If these terrible allegations were true, or even had a shred of possibly being true, the DA and PD would have subpoenaed/confiscated Jerry's current work and home computers and checked them out.
The fact that they declined to even do that should tell everyone what a crock of s*@t this is.
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