Laptop Wars: The Twin Cities Newspaper Battle's Now in the Courts

We've all been focused on the antics in the Tribune Tower recently. But it's amazing to remember that it's already been a year since McClatchy agreed to buy Knight Ridder, and KR began its quick fade into history. I was reminded of the year anniversary by two KR scions recently.

The actions of one, Par Ridder, have made big news. The words of another, Mark Batten, sent to me in comment on a post I'd written about his dad, serve as a timely counterpoint.

The saga of Par Ridder, erstwhile publisher of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press and now (but for how long?) the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, would be entertaining, if it didn't cut so close to the bone.

We recall that the saga became public on March 5, when Par jet-skiied down the Mississippi, on one Friday morning moving from one publisher's office to another. The problem was, according to the civil suit filed against him,
that he took a few things with him that he shouldn't. What did he take, according to the suit? Well, for starters his laptop that had lots of confidential and competitive information about Pioneer Press ad accounts and a folder with several non-compete contracts signed by Pioneer Press execs. Apparently, the Pioneer Press, after recovering from the shock of Par's betrayal, sent someone over to the Strib to recover the laptop...and had to wait while its contents were being copied. (Here's a good AP story summing up the case.)

It took a few days but Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews and managing partner of the Pioneer Press since last summer, assembled quite a dossier on the crosstown caper. He then took it to the Strib's new owners, Avista Capital Partners, who had hired Par away, and proposed a settlement for the damage done due to the confidential information now known by its key and historic competitor. Several days of talking produced no settlement, and Dean filed suit on March 12. That case was filed in Ramsey County, Saint Paul's home county. It charged Par, Avista and two other new Strib execs with "fraud, civil theft, disclosure of trade secrets and conspiracy." The two others? Two Pioneer Press execs, apparently both of whom had signed non-competes. It's a 46-page complaint overall, and it makes incredible reading. If you're so inclined, here's a post form Pioneer Press alumnus Brian Lambert on the color and the reasons the ad information might really hurt the Twin Cities' second paper.

Latest news in the case came Friday when the Ramsey court ruled in favor of letting the Pioneer Press search about a dozen Star Tribune computers, execs' computers that apparently received the copied Pioneer Press data. In addition, it also suspended from Strib employment one of the two execs Par had hired away.

For those of us who are veterans of the Twin Cities journalism wars, it's an amazing turn of events. Just before I arrived at the Pioneer Press to take a job in 1986, then-publisher Roger Parkinson had decided to break the historic gentlemen's agreement between the Cowles (Star/Tribune) and Ridder (Pioneer Press/Dispatch) families, an agreement that let the Mississippi largely divide markets. Parkinson had an epiphany one day, flying into town, that indeed from the air was one big city, not really two, separated by a river. Anyone who has lived in Saint Paul, experienced St. Patty's day, the Winter Carnival, the Vulcans and Cossetta's will tell you differently, but the war was on.

And that war has a more immediate logic in our time of shrinking newspaper revenues.

The Star Tribune, with all its claims to being "The Newspaper of the Twin Cities", needs to grow. After all, its market value, stretching from its purchase by McClatchy in 1998 to its sale by McClatchy last December, has been halved, all due to the circulation and advertising demons affecting the rest of the industry. But the Twin Cities is one of the few remaining markets with warring dailies. Eliminate the Pioneer Press, or reduce it to a smaller, suburban paper, and the Strib could actually grow. You'd have to believe that Avista is shaking its head in disbelief as a simple hiring of publisher threatens to put each new competitive move it makes -- ad pricing in all forms would be at the top of that list -- under a microscope, and maybe a judge-administered one at that.

Worth noting, in addition, is an unusual rupture in the fraternity. In a time of unprecedented newspaper amity, as they round the wagons colllectively looking for help from Yahoo and others, Dean Singleton's public fire stands out. Observers noted he seemed deeply irked by the breach of trust he saw, a breach that looks like it might have begun six months earlier as Par first contemplated a river jump. But his comment about the why and how -- how could a smart publisher have done so many things that seemingly cross basic business lines -- really cut to the bone:

"I didn't know at that time the magnitude of the heist. I thought at the time Par would make a gracious exit, and would be honorable, and I didn't know he had stolen everything we had....In Par's world, he could get away with anything because Daddy would always take care of him."

Which reminded me of a note I'd gotten recently from Mark Batten, son of Jim Batten. In January, I'd written about Jim and a golden age of journalism. Here's what Mark added:

I'm Jim Batten's oldest child, and it's gratifying to know that he is still on the minds of journalists. Thanks for this. One comment in particular leaped out at me, though -- the reference to his tenure as Knight Ridder's "golden age" -- because he didn't see it that way at all, at least not the way I remember it. He spoke often of the golden age, but it was about a time before newspapers had to bear the heavy (and ultimately crushing) weight of Wall Street demands, and before newspapers were forced to be as cognizant of the department stores as of government malfeasance. It's all in your perspective, I guess, and if he had lived to see the state of the industry today he might now describe the late 80's and early 90's in rosier terms.

Mark's right. I guess the golden age is the last decent time you remember. In any age though, a year after the KR sale, we're reminded of the never-changing need for integrity and courage if journalism is to have a vital future.