Gannett the Arizona AG Office and a Lawsuit
The Arizona Attorney General’s office had no choice but to withdraw its suit against Gannett Co., as it would have set a manacle-filled precedent that would have proved to be detrimental to all print publishers.
The story goes… Gannett decided to stop publishing the Tucson Citizen, with its last edition hitting the streets on May 16th. Note that Gannett is still publishing the newspapers content online, so it hasn’t totally disappeared from the Tucson media landscape, but the move undoubtedly allowed Gannett to reduce costs and still run it as a profitable property. This, however, was not the disputable point. Gannett and Lee also own the Tucson areas largest newspaper called the Arizona Daily Star and it was this relationship that caused the Attorney Generals office to file the suit in the first place. The suit claimed that Gannett and Lee were conspiring to create a monopoly that would force advertisers into a relationship with the only newspaper game in town – the Arizona Daily Star.
Whether the conspiracy theory is true or not, the decision to scale back operations should be left to the prerogative of the publisher and it shouldn’t be a matter fought out in court. I mean let’s face it. With advertisers becoming less inclined to choose print advertising over the Web, Gannett’s closing of the Tucson Citizen’s print property, shouldn’t give the Star a sustainable uplift. The Citizen is still positioned to turn itself into a profitable online business, especially given that online will be its only medium. Some would argue that it is this newly found singular media focus that will lead to their success and longevity and of course, there is nothing stopping Gannett from allowing its Citizen sales reps to syndicate their content to the Star’s print entity.
My ruling – the suit wasn’t warranted in the first place and it was based on some very spotty facts.
