Thursday, January 11, 2007
In a sternly yet clear December 27, 2006 letter to Stanton
L. Stein, the attorney hired by News-Press owner
Wendy McCaw (pictured) to sue newspapers and magazines
(including The Santa Barbara Independent), the
American Journalism
Review's attorney flatly refused to run a retraction of
the article on the News-Press meltdown written
by Susan Paterno. 
That's the article that also prompted
McCaw to attack Paterno herself with a lawsuit,
marking perhaps the first time that a newspaper publisher ever used
a court of law to individually threaten a writer. (See Paterno's
"Santa Barbara Smackdown" here.)
The six-page letter (plus five pages of N-P office
memos and emails/letters to Paterno from PR lady Agnes Huff and laywer David Millstein) from D.C.
lawyer Charles Tobin of the firm Holland and Knight
states that the December 6 retraction demand sent to AJR
only revealed two instances of inaccuracy by Paterno: 
that Huff was not also called a CEO and that
McCaw's fiancee Arthur von Wiesenberger stopped
writing restaurant reviews when he was crowned co-publisher.
[CORRECTION: These were not, as reported here, technically
inaccuracies. Paterno reported that Huff was "communications
manager" for the newspaper, which is what Huff told her, and she
was informed by others of von Wiesenberger status as critic and
co-pub. AJR issued these facts as clarifications, not
corrections.] The magazine, Paterno, and Tobin were able to verify
the other 30 or so claims for retraction and correction as
substantially true.
Tobin's letter is full of embarrasing blows to McCaw and company. First of all, Tobin explained that it's not clear even who the client is, because Stein is supposedly representing Ampersand Publishing, yet many of the demands are for individuals, namely McCaw and von Weisenberger. Also embarrasing for McCaw's team was Tobin's assertion that most of the alleged mistruths were actually verified by the retraction demand sent to AJR. For example, McCaw demanded that the magazine retract the suggestion that management was getting involved in newsroom dealings, but in the letter, her attorney clearly states that "Ampersand management" involved itself with "the general direction and quality of news reporting." McCaw's demand also stated that it was misleading to say that Travis Armstrong "killed" a story while simultaneously admitting that the article "was not published" after the reporter submitted it.
The retraction demand also listed problems with Paterno's interpretation of events, such as her conclusion that the newspaper management was trying to silence its critics. Yet Tobin attaches Millstein's letter to Paterno and cites it as a clear example of an attempt to silence Paterno. Also in that letter by Millstein is the statement that no one from the newspaper's management would be doing any interviews whatsoever. That pretty much sums up Paterno's line, which McCaw's attorney disputed, that McCaw "consistently refused to comment on the upheaval at her newspaper."
Tobin, a former journalist, reminds McCaw's lawyer that "courts in [California] flatly reject all efforts to challenge substantially truthful statements, such as the reporting in the 'Santa Barbara Smackdown' article" and that the state is also critical of attempts to silence reporting on public affairs via the "nation's strongest anti-SLAPP laws, which entitles litigants to recover their attorney's fees when faced with meritless challenges to their First Amendment rights."
But Tobin's real home runs are in his last two paragraphs:
"We are frankly dismayed that a news organization like the Santa Barbara News-Press would adopt the aggressively anti-free speech approach reflected in its December 6 letter to AJR and the frivolous lawsuit that your client has filed against Susan Paterno. Your client's position is especially disappointing given the numerous attempts Paterno and AJR made to speak with the newspaper's executives. Every item addressed in your letter would have more appropriately been discussed with the author before publication had Ampersand Publishing chosen to accept the invitation for an interview.
"We sincerely hope that the Santa Barbara News-Press will reconsider its obligations to the journalism community, abandon its frivolous pursuit of litigation and legal threats, and commit itself instead to the free and open exchange of ideas, and the straightforward reporting of the news, that its readers deserve."
Well put, Chuck. We'd like to see the same. For more, read the letter yourself by clicking here.