Taking a page out of the Bruce Brugmann playbook, the San Francisco Newspaper Company, which owns SF Weekly, the Examiner and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, has filed suit against against the San Francisco Chronicle, alleging the Hearst Corp.-owned paper of record is blocking out the Examiner's advertisers by offering dirt cheap rates to advertisers who agreed not to work with the free daily paper.

The story was broken by Joe Eskenazi of the Weekly, in the same office building where where SFNC President Todd Vogt recently had to have his foot surgically removed from his mouth.

According to the Weekly's insider details (helpfully reprinted on the Examiner), the lawsuit alleges that the Chronicle began slashing ad prices around the time Vogt & Co. took over the Examiner in 2011. In exchange for the lower rates, advertisers had to refrain from working with the smaller operation:

"Hearst has demanded and obtained agreements from key advertising customers, which preclude those customers from purchasing any advertising space from the Examiner for a period of a year or more," the complaint said. "In many cases, these discounts were specifically conditioned on the advertiser agreeing to purchase advertising services exclusively from Hearst and requiring it to stop doing business with the Examiner."

The lawsuit alleges that, in one case, the Chronicle gave away $200,000 worth of ad space and offered secret rates to different buyers. Advertisers reportedly snitched to Examiner execs about the Chronicle's shady business practices late last year and an attorney for the SFNC says they have material evidence of the aggressive pricing schemes.

The SFNC also alleges Hearst has been using other money making properties to subsidize the discount ads on the Chronicle, claiming the Examiner doesn't have the same resources to do that. (Although that is getting harder to argue, with SFNC's growing empire.)

All of this is illegal under the California Unfair Practices Act, which observant readers will remember was the same law the Guardian used to successfully sue the Weekly's former owners for $21 million (although the final undisclosed settlement was reportedly lower) a few years back. At the time, that case captivated handwringing members of the dead tree media across California, which — according to the Examiner's legal team — makes this scheme especially nefarious.

It's been a rocky year or so in local media and it doesn't look like the power plays are quite over yet. Expect this all to end when we have one unified web portal for the SFWeeklyGateGuardianExaminer.com tucked safely behind a paywall.

S.F. Newspaper Company President Todd Vogt spoke with CBS5's Joe Vazquez today, in an attempt to either clarify or obfuscate (we're still not quite sure ourselves) his company's reasons for bringing Michelle Shocked back to San Francisco for a free concert on Pride weekend, just months after she went on a confusing anti-gay rant onstage at Yoshi's.

According to Vogt, Shocked — or her representatives — initially attempted to purchase ad space in SF Weekly's annual Pride Guide. "For all the money in the world," Vogt told CBS5, "we weren't going to take some hate mongering homophobic ad."

When Shocked claimed she truly wanted to apologize for what happened at Yoshi's in March and clarify the situation, Vogt went a different route and the concert idea was born. "So we talked," Vogt explains, "and we decided the only way we’d do this is if you’d come to San Francisco, put on a free show, be honest and up front about it. She spoke to her people and decided to do it.”

A newspaper man with a strict bottom line turning down ad dollars and committing to spend money is already starting to raise a few eyebrows: Chloe Harris of 7x7 says calling the whole thing, "Disingenuous...Notorious" (as we did) is putting it mildly. Or, as San Francisco Magazine Editor-in-Chief Jon Steinberg phrased it: "#NotWorthItTodd."

If the story were truly about Shocked's mea culpa, as Vogt says, then an Examiner Op-Ed and an interview in the Weekly would have been a much more cost effective way to give the rambling stage performer a platform to speak. (Not to mention, Shocked herself seems to have already moved on to the Bradley Manning issue, anyway.)

Likewise, Vogt says the timing at the tail end of Pride Weekend is purely coincidental although he and his staff decided it was a perfect fit for the event. Shocked has implied on Twitter that she won't be paid for the gig, but there's always the matter of venue costs and event permits, not to mention the cost of flying SF Weekly's music editor to L.A. to do the interview. A venue for the concert still needs to be negotiated and Vogt says it is unclear whether the plucky provocatrice will even show up.

Update, June 19th: Vogt jumped on Twitter earlier today to make an apology and accept all the outrage that has been directed at him in the wake of the concert announcement:

We're not quite sure what this means for the free Shocked concert, as we're still trying to parse the singer's breakneck Twitter feed, but we'll be sure to update you when we know more.

Update, June 19th, 6 p.m.: Apparently Vogt was apologizing for this whole debacle. The Michelle Shocked show has been cancelled.

Previously: Michelle Shocked To Promote Herself With Free Concert During Pride, S.F. Examiner Op-Ed
All Michelle Shocked coverage on SFist
[CBS5]

After 30 years with stalwart progressive paper San Francisco Bay Guardian, editor Tim Redmond has been let go by the paper's new owner Todd Vogt of the San Francisco News Paper Company. Redmond, who quickly moved from his old home at the SFBG to a new Blogger account, claims he was axed because of a personnel and editorial dispute.

Here's Redmond, in his inaugural dot blogspot post:

Hi, my friends, all the people I love and care about in this city. I'm sad to announce that after 30 years, I have left the Bay Guardian. I am proud of all the work that we did over those years, but sadly, it has come to an end.

I was informed late last night by the owner, Todd Vogt, that my "resignation" had been accepted, although at no point did I resign.

Todd and I had a major disagreement over personnel and editorial direction, and this is how it ended. I was hoping that if my employment at the paper I have helped build over all these years had to end, it would be on more friendly terms. But alas, that was not to be.

The good news is that Blogger is free, and I will fancy up this blog in the next couple days, and I will continue to present perspectives and news about progressive San Francisco.

Redmond elaborated a little bit to the folks over at Fog City Journal: "At midnight last night I got a letter from Todd saying ‘your resignation is accepted,’ " Redmond told FCJ. "But I never submitted a resignation.” According to another unnamed source in the Guardian, Redmond was let go because he refused to fire three of the paper's six remaining newsroom staffers. On Facebook, Redmond says he was canned with "no severance or even a thanks."

Around the time Vogt's S.F. Newspaper Company bought the SFWeekly in January, Vogt praised Redmond as "the best and most knowledgeable progressive journalist. Period."

Meanwhile, across the office, SF Weekly reports that Redmond departed amid staff cuts. Also leaving the Guardian is culture editor Caitlin Donohue. SFBG staffers have been told that the resignations/layoffs have quelled any more firings within the newsroom for now.

In a letter posted on the Weekly's website, S.F. Newspaper Company vice president Stephen Buel wrote:

The Guardian has been losing money, and we were forced to contemplate some editorial layoffs. Tim decided to resign rather than follow through with what we were discussing. I am dedicated to reversing the Guardian's fortunes and helping it grow again.

While we will all miss Tim's skills as a journalist, I would like to assure the Guardian faithful that it will remain the progressive newspaper of record in San Francisco. I suspect there will be some skepticism about that, but over time, I am confident that readers will not be disappointed.

And for the record, the very first story that I ever wrote as a freelance journalist appeared in the Bay Guardian back in 1981.

[Tim's SF]
[FCJ]
[SFWeekly]