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Former News-Press Editor Jerry Roberts Wins Arbitration Award
Santa Barbara County Superior Court documents show that Santa Barbara News-Press owner and publisher Wendy McCaw has been ordered to pay nearly $1 million in legal fees and arbitration costs to former editor Jerry Roberts.
The arbitration award, issued in October, was released into public record on Thursday, when McCaw’s attorneys filed a petition to vacate Friday.
McCaw, also the owner of Ampersand Publishing LLC, was ordered to pay $748,022 in Roberts’ legal fees against McCaw’s claims of defamation and breach of fiduciary duty. Another $167,516 was awarded to Roberts for arbitration costs.
Roberts, editor of the News-Press for four years, resigned from his editorial position in 2006, citing management interference with news coverage. Many of the newspaper’s employees followed.
Ampersand sued Roberts, alleging he had violated his contract, and Roberts filed a counterclaim for wrongful termination.
Ampersand fired back with an amended claim, announcing it would seek $25 million in damages.
According to an excerpt from the arbitrator’s final award, “Ampersand chose to deviate from its initial stated commitment to stay out of the newsroom and ‘leave the day-to-day management and editorial decisions of our paper to the professionals’ and is therefore solely responsible for the resulting ‘hit in credibility.’”
Barry Cappello, McCaw’s attorney, said in a statement sent to Noozhawk late Friday that the arbitrator in the case “violated the jurisdictional requirements to rule expeditiously.”
“The News-Press intends to take every step to reverse this miscarriage of justice, and we have begun the process of petitioning the courts to vacate the award,” the statement said. “It is a sad example of some of the abuses that can take place when parties are outside the actual court system. It is with the judiciary that we will now pursue our petition to seek redress and reversal of this arbitrator’s invalid ruling.”
Andrine Smith, Roberts’ attorney, said, “My client is thrilled with it and feels vindicated and very happy to get back a large measure of what he was forced to spend.”
Roberts wasn’t able to comment directly to reporters, but he said in a statement that he was deeply grateful for the support of those who stood by him throughout the process.
“Winning this long fight was possible only because I had such strong support from my family, from colleagues, from the community and from the news industry,” Roberts said in the statement. “The award is a decisive victory for ethical journalism.
“Ethics, not money, was always the issue for me. ... It’s a great feeling to close this chapter with a victory.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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» on 02.05.10 @ 09:54 PM
Too bad McCaw won’t sell the NewsMess.
» on 02.05.10 @ 10:38 PM
“Ethics, not money, was always the issue for me. ... It’s a great feeling to close this chapter with a victory.”
I believe for Jerry this is true. McCaw and her lawyers no nothing about this… No, I don’t think the News Suppress was a great rag to begin with… I think media bias was running rampant long before McCaw. But it’s an entirely worse thing to “smear” an honest man with false (and such seamy) allegations. THAT is the true crime, and McCaw’s money should do the time.
CONGRATS JERRY! YOU DESERVE THIS WIN!
» on 02.06.10 @ 07:54 AM
I’m very, very glad for Mr. and Mrs. Roberts. Both have certainly suffered enough, and I admire their integrity throughout this ordeal.
None of us - News Press staff & community members - should have to put up with such vapid nonsense masquerading as a “news publisher”. I cancelled my subscription long ago, and now rely on a mix of the Sound, edhat, the Independent, & Noozhawk. But I have to say, I do miss having a larger local newspaper delivered to my door. However, as long as McCaw is in charge, I will never subscribe to the current News Press - as the editorial pages so obviously leak over into the reported news section. (If you don’t believe me, count the number of animal-related “news” articles and photo space since she’s become publisher - I love animals too, but this is so blatently “my personal interests are now community news”. And this is just what I quickly notice… what else goes on?! I’ve lost trust!)
» on 02.06.10 @ 09:02 AM
Looks to me like the lawyers are the only ones that really won here. Jerry Roberts is vindicated but the lawyers made a million dollars (and more to follow since they are contesting the award). Bloodsuckers.
» on 02.06.10 @ 10:23 AM
IT’s about time and Jerry, so well-deserved! Congrats for prevailing.
» on 02.06.10 @ 05:51 PM
Interesting that the stories in the LA Times and the SBNP were oh so different. The writer at the NP never got to the point and noodled around the issue-wonder who approved THAT piece? Best wishes to all the NP staffers who have suffered through this-and pray for an open-minded rich person to take the paper off of Wendy’s hands once it finally hemhorages so much red ink that even she will finally give it all up. The locals deserve better
» on 02.12.10 @ 05:18 PM
So let’s add up the attorney fees that Wendy McCaw spent:
$2,400,000 for her attorneys + $1,000,000 that she will pay for Jerry’s attorneys = $3,400,000.
The Chinese have a proverb: “she who seeks revenge should dig two graves.” That $3.4 million that Wendy just spent on pushing people around didn’t do anything for her newspaper, or her reputation in the community. It did enrich some attorneys. What a waste or resources and Court time.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the wealthy Ms. McCaw now wrote the Santa Barbara City College Adult Education division a check for $9,000,000 to preserve the status quo for one of the most enriching programs offered to community residents? If she did that, I might even consider subscribing again to the News Press. What a noble gesture and a positive act that would be!
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