Another fascinating day in court in the Guardian’s predatory-pricing lawsuit against the SF Weekly and its corporate owner. The Weekly is now well into its defense case, and the lawyers for the 16-paper chain that owns the paper are making the same arguments they’ve made all along. And they aren’t holding up very well.
The Guardian, as readers of this blog know by now, is claiming that the Weekly and Village Voice Media, the chain formerly known as New Times, sold ads below cost in an effort to harm the local competitor.
Today’s main witness was Jed Brunst, the company’s Phoenix-based CFO. H. Sinclair Kerr, the Weekly’s lead attorney, asked Brunst why New Times decided to buy the Weekly in 1995. “We saw San Francisco as a very vibrant market,” Brunst testified. “We saw it as an opportunity to make money and to practice good journalism.”
It was clear that Brunst was well prepared – much of his testimony seemed pre-rehearsed, which is not terribly surprising. Lawyers in a case like this typically make sure their own witnesses aren’t going to surprise them.
But Brunst got out of the box with a big problem: He said the chain saw San Francisco as a good opportunity to make money. And it became clear as the day went on that the Weekly had never made any money at all. Neither had the East Bay Express, which New Times bought in 2001. Both lost huge amounts of cash.