Jerry Roberts Fundraising Letter

It's gotta be tough when you are in a court case against Wendy McCaw. Like so many two-year olds that want whine with their cheese, McCaw seems to appeal until she gets the answer she wants. This is a money pit for Jerry Roberts and there is little reason for it other than McCaw can appeal. Please help if you can....the following is in Jerry's own words and jumps to his website after the break. -Sara

I want to update you on what's happened in the $25 million lawsuit filed against me by billionaire Wendy McCaw’s Ampersand Publishing, the owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press.

As you know, I resigned as editor in 2006 to protest unethical journalistic practices at the paper. For 2½ years, I have been unable to talk publicly about the litigation because it was filed as a private arbitration. But McCaw's lawyers recently took the matter public, so I can bring you up to date.

The good news is that we've won. The arbitrator has issued interim orders denying all of Ampersand’s claims against me and declaring me to be the prevailing party in the case. The bad news is that because of McCaw's unlimited resources and vindictive effort to ruin my family financially, it's not over yet. [Read More]

Wendy Says Adieu to 2008, Promises Hope, Kindness and Faith in 2009

In a front page note to readers today -- Wendy McCaw said the following:

As 2009 begins a fresh start let's not wallow in the difficulties of the year that was but look to the future with hope, kindness and faith.

Let's hope she puts her money where her mouth is...given the news around several layoffs this year and the Jerry Roberts arbitration, I have to doubt we shall see the above in practice, but can't I dream? Craig Smith has similar thoughts listed over at his blog. Can we both be wrong? :)

Update on SBNP Layoffs and Voice Over

There wasn't too much new information early today about the SBNP layoffs today other than Craig Smith reporting how it all went down at De la Guerra Plaza. Apparently, security was present but there were not any awkward moments like with the May Day Massacre. Apparently, there was no severance given and laid off employees were left wondering how they were going to celebrate the holidays.

Although the newsroom at De la Guerra Plaza was saved from more blood letting for now -- several columnists were laid off from the Voice. There's a picture of the Voice's Rebecca Carol at EdHat showing the quality time she is now spending with her child. She wrote the Police Blotter -- one of my favorite columns. Other columnists who were laid off are not yet widely known but I would wager there are a few.

Matt Kettman at The Indy wrote a good article where, as I predicted yesterday, the News-Press blamed the economy as what drove this spate of layoffs and the death of two community newspapers. Don Katich was quoted as saying the economy and "out of town" union protesters were responsible for their woes.

Perhaps more telling of what the future holds for the Santa Barbara News-Press was his quote on how the newsroom now works. To the point, he was specifically asked how many reporters remain in the newsroom but could not come up with a number for Kettman's article.

“We don’t necessarily have people who just report, or have people who just do copy, or who just do management, because we all kind of jump in and do what is necessary depending on who is working that day and what stories develop….It’s a tough question to answer in today’s digital world. In the past, 20 years ago, [newsroom roles] were much more defined.”

Antithetical to union organizing and protecting the craft of journalism, I guess that means that anyone can write a "staff report"? Feigning surprise to the "digital world" when the News-Press website is a closed system -- when even the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times offer their content to the world -- is irresponsible considering today's economy. Also, his statement is ironic considering the slow speed of their website and how hard it is to navigate. If they were to make even a small effort in this area -- I would be more open to hearing him discuss the challenges of a "digital world". Clueless are they.

SBNP Likely to Lose Paterno Case

Calling the Susan Paterno Libel case ironic, a judge dismissed a key element of the SBNP Case against the American Journalism Review reporter yesterday. Here's how Craig Smith describes the case:

In order to meet its burden of demonstrating that it would prevail on the libel claim, Ampersand sought to take testimony from Paterno and her editorial assistant and to obtain any documents "reflecting, relating or referring" to their preparation of the article. Ampersand also sought documents from the American Journalism Review relating to the article. Ampersand claimed this discovery was necessary to show Paterno's subjective state of mind regarding the truth or falsity of her statements.

According to Smith, the case will now go back to trial where a Judge would have to reverse the claim against Paterno and very likely dismiss the News-Press claim.

SBNP Makes DLG Plaza Correction and Apparently Hasn't Served the City Yet

An avid reader passed on this correction which appeared on the SBNP website:

In Friday's paper on page A10, a story about a lawsuit filed by News-Press parent company, Ampersand Publishing LLC, against the City of Santa Barbara, its Transportation and Circulation Committee and three individual members of the committee should have included the fact that the suit was filed in Santa Barbara County Superior Court.

Why wasn't this mentioned in the original article? Perhaps because the suit hasn't been officially served to the City of Santa Barbara yet according to word on the street. Apparently this small matter can wait until Monday...after Ampersand's opinion has been properly publicized in the newspaper as an article. Wanna bet there will be an opinion piece published today?

Late Time Stamp on Roberts Story

For those of you wondering about the missing story on the online version of the News-Press -- I've been sent the following from a faithful reader:

News-Press seeks exam of computer used by ex-editor Roberts containing child porn
NEWS-PRESS STAFF REPORT
April 22, 2007 1:12 PM

This is the latest posting of a story in recent memory....

The Glove Doesn't Fit!

With all due respect to the famous lawyer, wouldn't Johnny Cochrane say that from the grave? Today we saw a non by-lined story on the front page of the News-Press seeking ex-editor Jerry Robert's hard drive which (not even alledgedly in their report) contains 15,000 images of pornography. Here are the facts thus far:

1) The article actually admits that the District Attorney's Office was unable to prosecute this matter because it would be impossible to tell who put the images on the drive.

2) Roberts passed a lie detector test on the matter.

3) The suspect Macintosh G4 hard drive was a from a used computer used by other editors before Roberts.

4) The News-Press did not contact Roberts for a comment. Bias in the newsroom? At the very least, it is what The Indpendent Media Blog is calling "the biggest no-no in journalism".

5) As Roberts attorney pointed out, "You'd have to be working at it for three years to accumulate this much info". What he really means is who has that much hard drive space on a used G4?

Let's do the math. 15,000 images at let's say a megabyte each....that's 15 gigabytes of images on a used G4. A G4 that is maybe 6 years old shipped with a 27 gigabyte hard drive. A little more recent G4 powerbook would have shipped with a 60 gigabyte hard drive. Why would someone have more than half to a just under a third of their hard drive in images like this and think they could get away with it on a company computer? It would also severely affect performance....

Yes -- let's see what they come up with at Ampersand. But they better come up with a whole lot more. A few months ago I questioned whether they could get any lower. They have. There are no longer any journalists that are also management at De La Guerra Plaza. They've been trying to push this story for months even here at BlogaBarbara and I kept declining the comments. Are they doing this because no one else would? McCaw and Company should be ashamed of themselves....

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....

Google Subpoena Update

I have received an email from Google saying that they intend to provide "responsive documents" as to the identity of the January 27th commenter by March 19th.

The silver lining in this communication from them is that they did not have to contact me at all about this issue. This email gives the anonymous commenter a bit more time to take steps to protect him or herself.

As I have suggested before, the commenter might begin by contacting an attorney, and/or the Electronic Frontier Foundation as soon as possible.