Our take? This patently frivolous lawsuit will be "dumped" before the end of the month
Following up on our
earlier story on this topic, we learn this morning from
The Standard-Examiner, the
Salt Lake Tribune and the
Deseret News that
"[t]he Deseret News’ top managers and The Salt Lake Tribune’s corporate owners are asking a federal judge to reject claims that a new business arrangement between Utah’s two largest newspapers violates the law and should be undone. U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups has scheduled a July 21 hearing on the lawsuit, filed last month by a nonprofit group called Citizens for Two Voices (also known as the Utah Newspaper Project)":
The appellant newspaper owners
"argue that the Utah Newspaper Project lacks proper legal standing to pursue the case, primarily because its members haven’t shown how they are injured by the JOA changes, beyond "hypothetical" and "conjectural" allegations of how they or others in Utah might suffer from losing The Tribune’s editorial voice if the paper shut down," according the the above-linked
Trib story, among other things.
"Claims that the new JOA is ultimately intended to put The Tribune out of business are baseless, [appellants] have [affimatively] contended, saying there are no plans to shut down the paper — 'not this week, this month, this year, or ever'"
Our take? This patently frivolous (but well-meaning) lawsuit will be
"dumped" before the end of the month.
Comments, anyone?
1 comment:
One of the more troubling aspects of the deal is the power of the Deseret News to block the sale of the Tribune. This could lead to refusal of sale to a new Tribune deep pockets owner. A new owner of the Tribune who would put his own money into the operation above what the distribution split allows.
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