Fromson tries the Sgt. Schultz defense
By Tim Redmond
The publisher of the SF Weekly, who harshly criticized the professional qualifications of his Bay Guardian counterpart during our predatory-pricing trial, said yesterday under oath that he knows almost nothing about his business.
Josh Fromson testified in a sworn deposition as part of the Guardian’s efforts to collect on the $17 million that the Weekly and its parent company, Village Voice Media, owe us after a jury verdict in a five-week trial.
Guardian attorney Robert Pollak was attempting to find out where the company’s resources are. The so-called debtor’s exam is a common procedure in civil cases, and the company that owes the money is supposed to provide honest information about its finances.
Fromson provided almost nothing. In fact, if the Weekly’s top local executive, who claims to run everything except the editorial department at the paper, was telling the truth, he is astonishingly lax in his understanding of his job.
Fromson testified that he was responsible for all of the business activities of the Weekly, that he oversaw everything except editorial. That’s typical for a newspaper publisher.
But from then on, his answers were – to be kind – a bit hard to believe.
Fromson started off by saying that he didn’t know who his boss worked for.
He said his immediate supervisor was Jim Larkin, who is listed on the Weekly’s masthead as the chief executive officer of Village Voice Media. Nowhere in any of the thousands of pages of lawsuit documents was there any suggestion that Larkin was anything but a VVM employee, and to my knowledge nobody at VVM has ever suggested that either.
When Fromson was asked, almost as a matter of course and for the record, who Larkin’s employer was, he said:
“I don’t know.”
That became a refrain in a deposition that Fromson clearly didn’t take seriously. He spent much of it leaning back in his chair and chewing gum.
And by the end, it became clear that Fromson – again, if he’s telling the truth – doesn’t know whether his company owns or leases its office equipmemt, doesn’t know what bank his company uses for its accounts (although he signs the checks), doesn’t know what his weekly expenses are, doesn’t know whether there’s enough money in the bank to cover the checks he signs, doesn’t know who the paper owes money to, doesn’t know who deposits the checks the Weekly gets from its advertisers, doesn’t know whether any records of those deposits exist or where they are … in short, he doesn’t know any of the basic financial information that the publisher of any newspaper I’ve ever heard of is responsible for knowing.
Some examples of Fromson’s purported ignorance:
Pollak asked him if he knew what type of corporate form the SF Weekly took.
“I don’t know,” he said. (That’s pretty lame, considering that the Weekly’s corporate structure was laid out in detail in the lawsuit.)
Pollak asked whether the Weekly owned the desks, chairs, computers and other equipment in the office.
“I don’t know,” Fromson said.
“Who would know that?” Pollak asked. “I don’t know right off hand,” Fromson said.
Pollak asked what happens to the money that the Weekly collects from its advertisers (does it get deposited in a bank account, for example?).
Fromson: “I don’t know.”
What bank does the SF Weekly use for its accounts?
“I don’t know.”
When you sign the rent check each month, what bank is it drawn on?
“I don’t pay attention.”
What are your average expenses each week?
“I don’t know.”
What bank account are the operating expenses paid through?
“I don’t know.”
Who decides which bills get paid and when?
“I don’t know.”
Pollak asked for documents showing deposits in bank accounts. Fromson said they don’t exist. He asked if Fromson ever checked the balance in the company’s account; Fromson said he didn’t. “When you write a check,” Pollak asked, “how do you know there’s money in the account?”
Fromson: “I don’t.”
When clients send checks to the SF Weekly, Pollak asked, who takes the deposit to the bank?
“I don’t know.”
When that person gets a receipt for the deposit, where is that filed?
“I don’t know.”
You get the picture.
During the trial, Fromson took the stand and launched a harsh attack on Guardian co-publisher Jean Dibble, who oversees the paper’s finances, saying she didn’t go out on sales calls (which he was proud to say he does).
But after today, I have to wonder:
Can a sophisticated operation like VVM really have a publisher who doesn’t know which bank he uses, who doesn’t know if there’s money to cover the checks he signs, who doesn’t keep track of the deposit receipts, who seems to have no knowledge of the most important aspects of his job?
Is Josh Fromson really that dumb and incompetent?
Or was his sworn testimony, perhaps, a bit short of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?