Stand up to She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
Former
Santa Barbara News-Press editor Jerry Roberts is one nice guy who deserves tremendous respect, and what he
has had to endure in the last year is utterly ridiculous, shameful -- and idiotic.
Though I could go on, I'll stop there lest someone -- such as, oh, say, Wendy McCaw, the N-P's publisher (also known among some journalists as "She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named") -- files suit against me.
Roberts was smart enough to leave that newsroom following
breaches of journalism ethics. Dozens of his former colleagues have followed him. The Society
paid tribute to several of those journalists with national ethics awards last year.
And then the blizzard of silly lawsuits started. Roberts, for example, has been socked with a $25 million arbitration claim. Susan Paterno, who wrote a
smart and thorough account of the N-P's troubles for
American Journalism Review, is also staring down the barrell of a multimillion-dollar suit. (Media lawyer Charles "Chuck" Tobin of Holland & Knight in Washington, D.C., is representing Paterno.
Take a look at his legal argument, which states that the war being waged against Paterno is "... yet another effort by a wealthy and powerful public figure to sue its critics into silence." [PDF, 1.5 MB])
One of the sad things about these legal shenangians is that they've been launched at journalists who -- let's face it -- don't have deep pockets. Certainly not pockets as deep as billionaire McCaw's.
Take a look at Roberts' appeal for help, pasted below -- and please, please, please consider joining this effort.
Dear colleagues, friends and supporters,
I was humbled and honored to be among nine journalists, all formerly on the staff of the Santa Barbara News-Press, given a National Ethics in Journalism Award several months ago by the Society of Professional Journalists.
The SPJ, after an independent investigation of the extraordinary events in Santa Barbara, awarded the honor to a group of us who felt forced to leave the paper last summer because of concerns over the ethics of management decisions involving news coverage. Our group, the SPJ citation said, "opted to risk their livelihoods rather than remain in a position where they felt their journalistic ethics and professional credibility were being violated."
Amid the ongoing exodus of dozens of professional journalists from the News-Press, the paper's owner has filed a flurry of legal threats, claims and lawsuits against people who dared to speak out or report about what was happening in the newsroom.
In response, a group of prominent local attorneys formed the Lawyers Alliance for Free Speech Rights, to help level the playing field for journalists who found themselves bludgeoned by legal attacks by Ampersand Publishing, owned by billionaire Wendy McCaw.
I am one of those journalists, now facing a $25 million arbitration claim filed by the company.
Colleagues and friends put together a web site -- www.jerryrobertsandfriends.org -- to help the Alliance help me and other journalists fight back.
Please take a few minutes to review the events at the paper by reading the stories on this site. And then please make a donation to the Lawyers Alliance for Free Speech Rights, in defense of the values, standards and ethics of public interest journalism.
Thanks for your consideration.