Regarding yesterday's federal ruling, affirming Gannett's right to effectively close the Tucson Citizen, Santa Monica Media CEO Steve Hadland writes the following. The final bidder in the sale, Hadland had asked Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard to intervene.
Gannett lawyers had months to prepare their case, while the Arizona Attorney General's Office had only a weekend. Given a chance and the time to correctly prepare the case, I believe the Attorney General would have prevailed. Instead of using one newspaper’s profits to help the other newspaper, as was intended by the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970, the Arizona Star is now free to feast on the carcass of the Tucson Citizen. This is a sad day for newspapers.
The AG had months to prepare his case too but he just chose to ignore the inevitable.
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