Author: Brian Lambert

It comes as a relief to find out I’m not the only one who can’t get his head around why Avista Capital Partners didn’t sever ties with Par Ridder the first day they heard about his non-compete problem? I am not sure, nor are a handful of local attorneys I’ve spoken with in recent days, whether it was ever entirely possible for Avista to essentially disown Par. Even upon news of his non-compete and downloaded Pioneeer Press data problems. But it sure would have been worth a shot.

As it is, the educated guess, (by the above-mentioned attorneys, not me), is that the best Avista and Ridder can hope for between now and when Ramsey County Judge David C. Higgs hands down his decision in the injunction MediaNews wants against Ridder and two other former PiPress execs is a settlement — finally — with MediaNews boss, Dean Singleton, and the ability to at least conclude the public end of this fiasco.

(Now watch Judge Higgs rule in Ridder’s favor or give him an “admonishing” tap on the wrist.)

The five attorneys with whom I spoke all practice some form of labor/employment law, are familiar with non-competes and the Business 101 no-no of transfering confidential, proprietary information. One had just returned from vacation and knew only the barest outlines, but has long wondered what special power Ridder has over Avista that they’d travel this far down the road with him. That attorney and three others insisted on staying off record even while expressing the same level of bafflement on the hook Par has in this largely faceless New York equity company.

Thankfully, Ron Rosenbaum is comfortable sharing his opinions with the public. The attorney/KSTP legal analyst and radio host has a long background in non-competes and labor/employment contract law and is completely in synch with his legal peers in failing to understand both why this thing wasn’t settled long ago and why Avista hasn’t cut Par loose by now.

“Courts don’t like to get involved in this kind of thing,” said Rosenbaum. “That’s why injunctions like this are so rare. A court doesn’t want to get into the business of telling private parties what to do.”

Nevertheless, here we are with Ridder in open court, with media snarks scribbling furiously, arguing that pretty much everything was just, like, you know, a series of honest, innocent mistakes.

“Innocent mistakes? Well,” said Rosenbaum, “either he’s lying or he’s flat-out stupid. I mean, what he’s saying just isn’t credible. Either way it’s pretty hard now to un-ring the bell.”

“The sad irony here is that we’ve got these two newspaper companies tied up in a mess like this. These are people that, theoretically at least, the rest of us rely on to tell us the truth about what’s going on in town. And as we all know there’s been a move afoot for quite a while now to attack the credibility of the mainstream press. A case like this is the equivalent of throwing red meat to the lions.”

None of the great legal minds with whom I spoke could offer a good explanation for why back in March when all hell started breaking loose Avista didn’t just say to Ridder, “It appears you have misrepresented yourself to us. Therefore we are voiding your contract and will be seeking another publisher. MediaNews’ fight is with you. Not us.”

Somewhere there might be someone who sees Par Ridder as a unique and irreplaceable talent, the kind of brilliant captain you follow into the briney deep rather than shove aside for a capable yeoman who can hold the wheel steady through the stormy night. But I haven’t met or read of that person. The rap on Avista Capital Partners is that they don’t know newspapering from toilet papering, and something like this goes a long ways toward confirming the worst cynics’ worst suspicions.

Back to Rosenbaum, who says he would hold Avista’s attorneys responsible for not
adequately explaining the extent of their clients’ liability and what by every visible angle appears to be a disproportionate downside to this case … if he didn’t suspect that they did offer their grim assessment. “In the end it’s always the client’s decision, and this may be a case where the clients ignored their attorneys’ advice.”

The assumption I make is that Avista has tried several times to settle this with Dean Singleton and Singleton has refused, preferring for his reasons the added impact of the public PR disaster Ridder and Avista have taken … along with a fat payday and the pleasure of watching Avista get stuck with the tab for his legal fees and those 2000 hours of computer forensics work.

So how many punches is that? Two big ones and two smaller ones? And on top of the Star Tribune projecting 20% less revenue than Avista bought six months ago? Crimeny! A restless, impatient private equity firm might just decide, “To hell with this!”, and seek a very early exit from their newspaper adventure. In that case, a smart, hard-nosed operator with a stake in the market might offer them a fire sale price, plead imminent financial catastrophe to federal regulators and promise the public a return to journalistic health via a one newspaper universe.

I couldn’t help be struck yesterday when a reporter colleague asked Singleton if he foresaw the Twin Cities becoming a one-newspaper town and Singleton instantly, reflexively said that that would be a disservice to, “the east metro”, implying that it would be the big, and plainly bad Star Tribune driving the Pioneer Press out of this market.

When I asked, “Well, but what if YOU are the survivor?” Singleton ignored the question and continued on with the well work-shopped scenario that paints him as the wronged and embattled defender of the loyal St. Paul-ites.

(More than one press wag has laughed at the irony that Par Ridder has managed to turn a cutthroat operator like Dean Singleton into the sympathetic, noble victim of this episode.)

Despite Ridder telling David Carr of the New York Times that, “We [meaning his family] are NOT A PART of Avista”, (my emphasis), I can’t get past what seems the most logical explanation for Avista bonding so tightly with young Par. Namely, that somehow, somewhere, in some way elder Ridders have a stake in Avista or entities closely associated with it.

A little after 11 this morning Par Ridder took the stand in his own defense. It would be an understatement to say he and his legal team have a ways to go to get back in the game. The battle is over him essentially waiving his own non-compete to leave St. Paul for Minneapolis and what on some level at least is a staggering amount of potentially critical, highly confidential financial he had a hand in transferring from the Pioneer Press to the Star Tribune. But their strategy became clear almost immediately.

In short, it comes down to this: It was all an innocent mistake. By “all” we mean that transfer and “migration” of confidential Pioneer Press financial data to Star Tribune computers anyway. (I had to leave before Ridder got into his explanation for the non-compete business.)

Ridder explained that what he did when arriving at the Star Tribune was exactly what he had done when arriving at the Pioneer Press from San Luis Obispo in 2004. He simply wanted his new paper’s financial data copied on to his “18 to 20” custom-built spreadsheets. Under his attorney’s gentle questioning Ridder explained that his laptop contained 10 years worth of sales and other financial data from every place he has worked.

The critical difference of course being that until he jumped to the Star Tribune he had only worked for one of his family’s newspapers and had never before slipped across town over a weekend to work for a direct competitor.

The prosecution team [excuse me, “attorneys for the plaintiff”], established yesterday that the names and contract specifics of 3890 Pioneer Press advertisers were on the files Ridder — or someone — downloaded from Pioneer Press hardware on or about March 6, 2007. In the early moments of Ridder’s testimony today he named only Star Tribune CFO, Mike Riggs and Sr. VP for Sales Mike LaBonia as people who had been given access to confidential Pioneer Press files, each with specific instructions from him, in e-mails, to “be careful” with the files.

Riggs was required to replicate the spread sheets Ridder preferred to use and LaBonia, apparently, to get an idea of how Ridder liked to break out advertisers by categories.

(For all you jargon lovers, Ridder described his “Three Bucket” delineation process. “Select” accounts for heavy-hitting customers like Macy’s and car dealers. “Key” accounts for middling clients, and “territory” accounts for small businesses in specific metro areas.)

During a mid-morning break I stopped MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton working his way back from the men’s room. I reminded him I was the guy who asked him yesterday if Avista had yet offered to settle this thing before a full and final public humiliation. “Yes, and I think I said I didn’t want to say anything about that.”

“Yeah, but my question really is whether a judgment against Par Ridder himself is enough. Would that alone satisfy you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, in a barroom conversation yesterday I said a major businessman like you long ago learned to dial out emotion and to never let things like this get personal.”

“This isn’t personal. This is simply about what’s right and what’s wrong, and what was done here was wrong.”

“Right. But my question is is it enough to simply establish that, or, again, as a hard-nosed businessman isn’t the real vindication in the financial sting of a judgment in your favor?”

Singleton looked down, looked up, looked at the bank of elevators, and then said, “Look, I’ve been in newspapers since I was 15. Its really the only business I know. And all I’m really say here is that this wasn’t ethical, or right.”

“OK. Well, let me ask you this, are you surprised that Avista hasn’t separated itself from Ridder by now?”

“These are Wall Street people, investors. They are not newspaper people. I don’t think they understand the conflict of interest in this case.” He added, “In the case of Par I think some of the explanation [for his actions] lies in the fact that he had everything given to him. He felt he was entitled to act as he has.”

About this time Chris Harte, the lone newspaper person among the Avista hierarchy walked up. The two men clearly have known each other for some time and betray no animosity.

A small crowd began to gather and another reporter asked Singleton and Harte if they see “a floor” to the miserable state of the newspaper
industry.

“I hope so,” said Singleton with a rueful chuckle. He then launched into a familiar enough description of “the perfect storm” afflicting the industry today — cratering real estate listings, “migrating” employment listings and an automobile industry in worse shape than newspapers. To all this Harte nodded in agreement.

“Fine,” I said, “but isn’t another significant factor unrealistic profit expectations by companies like yours?” meaning both MediaNews and Avista.

“Well,” said Singleton, who has heard that one before, “a lot of people in this industry are fighting to make any profit at all.” He then mentioned the situation in Boston, and Harte reminded him of Seattle’s meltdown. Both the Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune, though, are currently profitable. Maybe not next year. But right now they’re making money.

As the recess ended I asked Harte, “Has Avista considered separating itself from Ridder?”

“Absolutely not,” Harte replied, shooting Singleton a quick glance, “not when we were threatened with a criminal suit.”

“But if you lose and it means making a large payment to Mr. Singleton would you then consider legal action against Mr. Ridder?”

Harte looked displeased with the question. His expression was of someone with a smelly sock stuffed under his nose. “No. Because I think what’s clear here, what the public will see, is that this,” meaning Singleton’s suit, “is an attempt to vilify someone for competitive advantage.”

Finally, the last prosecution witness before Ridder took the stand today was Karen Clary former VP of HR for the Pioneer Press. She reiterated that Ridder had originally asked to sign a non-compete like other members of the PiPress’ “Operating Committee”, or “Op-Com” as Clary called it in military command-speak.

She then said that Ridder personally instructed her to remove the non-competes from company files “sometime around December of 2005”. She said he told her, “he had decided to rescind the agreement”, because PiPress executives with long-term attachments to St. Paul would be left in a difficult situation after the sale of Knight-Ridder went down.

“Par asked if I was comfortable doing this,” she said, referring to pulling the files. “I said I was, but than I thought about it a bit and I went back to him and said I was not comfortable doing it without corporate approval.”

At this point she says Ridder told her he would talk to corporate, specifically Knight Ridder Sr. VP, Art Brisbane. Clary testified that Ridder got back to her, “a few days later and said he had talked to Brisbane and gotten the OK.” Brisbane’s videotaped deposition yesterday had him failing to “really recall” the conversation much less giving the “OK”. Either way, no written waiver exists.

Clary was asked about any concerns she had over the whole waiving of the non-competes business, and she replied that she did think it a bit odd, “that Mr. Ridder would be releasing himself” from a non-compete.

As I watched close to a dozen attorneys negotiate out the last few details before opening the temporary injunction hearing against Par Ridder in the Ramsey County Courthouse this morning, I couldn’t help but run numbers and wonder how many friendly telephone switchboard ladies you could buy for the amount of cash that was being hemorrhaged in just the first day of these proceedings.

I mean, in addition to Ridder, the embattled Star Tribune publisher in court to defend himself against charges of outrageous executive incompetence, perfidy or outright fraud, take your pick, the hearing brought an impressive gathering of some very well-compensated media executives. Everyone in sight was burning up hyper-compensated hours as Ridder faced legal music in public for the first time. That low roar we all heard as the courtroom filled? It was the combination of multiple billing meters spinning at very dangerous RPMs for the dozen or so $500 per hr. attorneys milling about, as well as the big-time executive overhead idling in their seats.

The assembled cast included, Par Ridder, who maintained a stiff, deer-in-the-headlights look throughout the first few hours, and who engaged in almost no collegial bonhomie with his Avista employers, OhSang Kwan and Chris Harte. In contrast, there was his/their adversary, Media News tycoon Dean Singleton, oozing confidence, cordially shaking hands with Kwan, who sat behind him, and joking with veteran newspaper biz analyst John Morton, (flown in to testify as an expert witness). For a time Harte, seated next to me in the back row, nodded rapidly, maybe even frantically at anything that sounded even vaguely exculpatory of his boy Par. But as the morning wore on and the damage piled up, first by Ridder’s own admissions and then from former Knight-Ridder Sr. VP Art Brisbane, Harte spent more time with his head down texting on his Blackberry.

The reasons for Singleton’s confidence didn’t take long to become evident. His attorneys opened with an hour-long, edited video of Ridder’s June 5-6 deposition. Lacking any real legal expertise beyond what I’ve seen on Law and Order and my half dozen trips to small claims court, (four wins, two losses), I’m no expert. But it is almost impossible to see how Ridder skates on this one. If it this opening round were a prize fight young Par would be in the ring alone and still losing by a knock out.

What Ridder personally concedes is rather amazing, if only for the fact that his family is so deeply steeped in the business of newspapers. By my assessment he seems to have broken just about all of the basic rules you’d assume the Ridders discussed around the breakfast table.

Here are the highlights from Day #1:

* Ridder signed a non-compete agreement with the St. Paul Pioneer Press on April 19, 2004, but says he never read it. He says he signed it because he was concerned, “What [other members of the Pioneer Press operating committee] might say behind my back if they found out I didn’t have a non-compete and they did.”

* He said, “I signed it so I was bound by it,” and adds, “if this document is valid, it is binding.”

* He says — and this is critical — the non-compete agreements applying to himself and as many as a dozen other Pioneer Press executives were invalidated in late 2005 in a phone call he had with Brisbane, one of a quartet of executives at the very top of the Knight Ridder corporation. (Brisbane and the others were reporting to Ridder’s father, Tony, the family and company patriarch.) Ridder says he requested the non-competes be waived and Brisbane said either, “Yes”, or “OK”, Ridder can’t recall which.

* Unfortunately for Ridder, no written record exists of Brisbane waiving the non-competes, nor does Brisbane “really recall” ever discussing such a waiver with Par. For that reason there was no discussion ever with the rest of the Knight-Ridder executive quartet, their in-house lawyers, or daddy Tony.

* Moreover, Brisbane, who also appeared in an edited video deposition, thinks it would have been highly unlikely he or anyone at Knight Ridder corporate would have agreed to such an extraordinary waiver in the last quarter of 2005, because that was the same period they were trying to lock in all their publishers, CEOs and top executives as they prepared to sell the company, which they did to McClatchy the following spring.

* On March 1 of this year Ridder disclosed to his secretary/assistant, Barb Cartalucca, that he is leaving to join the Star Tribune. He asked about the location of the actual non-compete documents, for himself and other Pioneer Press executives, and is surprised to learn that she has kept them in her desk. Cartalucca offered to retrieve them and go immediately home and shred them. (A legal question here: Assuming paper shredders were still in the Pioneer Press budget in 2007 — which is not a certainty — why couldn’t the non-competes have been shredded at the Pioneer Press? Was Ridder concerned that Singleton’s people would come in and paste the slivered strips back together a la the Iranian revolutionaries at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran? Somebody fill me in.)

* While Cartalucca gathered up the paperwork and headed for the parking ramp and her car, Ridder called … daddy. Tony Ridder advised his son that it’d be a far better idea to take personal possession of the non-competes. This sets up the amusing image, as Ridder described it, of him trying to figure out in which ramp Cartalucca had parked her car and “running”, (as Cartalucca described it), to overtake her in the garage elevator.

* “I told (Cartalucca) she shouldn’t be involved in this,” said Ridder, “and she handed the non-competes back to me.”

* Ridder says, “I don’t ever recall directing Cartalucca to destroy those documents.” Overall, his “I don’t recall” quota didn’t approach Alberto Gonzales, but considering the legal talent and fees preparing him for this deposition you’d think someone could have coached him in some less unfortunate verbiage.

* He did say that, “I was concerned those documents could impede my progress to the Star Tribune. I wanted those non-competes with me.”

* On Sept. 26, 2006, about the time he was drafting his still odd-to-mysterious good-bye/hello speech in expectation (?) of leaving St. Paul for Minneapolis, Ridder signed MediaNews’ Ethics Statement, which details what may and may not leave the building with you in the event of separation. Again, Ridder says he didn’t actually read the document.

* On Feb. 23, 2007 he makes a trip to New York City for a more-or-less final meeting with Avista’s main players. Ridder has prepared a list of 14 names of Strib executives and editors he would like to replace, including editorial editor, Susan Albright. Under questioning he concedes that he has tentatively inked in the names of 10 Pioneer Press executives to bring with him, eight of whom he knows have non-competes.

* On March 2 at 4 p.m. Ridder telephones MediaNews Executive VP and COO, Steve Rossi to tell him he is leaving and moving to the Star Tribune. He tells Rossi, “I will not be taking anyone with me.” Ridder then says in his deposition that what he meant was that he was not taking anyone with him, “as I left the building that day.”

* Ridder concedes virtually every accusation leveled at him with regards to the confidential, highly proprietary information he first took with him on Pioneer Press laptop(s) and a USB drive. This includes information about custom ad rates and other vital contractual information for 3890 separate customers, according to Mark Lanterman of Computer Forensics of Minnetonka, whose company, he said in his live testimony, has spent 2000 hours scanning 3300 files in 30 terabytes of data from all the Pioneer Press computers, jump drives and discs that fell into Star Tribune hands. Lanterman places the time of the “migration” of data from Ridder’s Pioneer Press laptop, etc. to his Star Tribune computer at about 8 pm on March 6th, or at least a full day after the Pioneer Press had asked for all that material to be returned.

* When asked by former Star Tribune reporter-turned-attorney, Dan Oberdorfer, how confident he was that he knew exactly how many Star Tribune executives received the Pioneer Press data Ridder e-mailed out, Lanterman replied that he had, “No confidence at all” that his company had yet identified everyone.

* Asked if his new bosses at Avista “admonished” him for violating so basic a tenet of corporate ethics as taking and distributing confidential financial records, Ridder paused for a moment in his deposition before asking, “Can you define ‘admonish’?”

* Cartalucca testified that Ridder told her, “I spoke to a lawyer and those non-competes are no longer valid.”

* In his videotaped testimony, OhSang Kwan says that Ridder assured them he could “represent” to them that he was not bound by any non-compete agreement.

* Another Avista partner, James Finkelstein, in his videotaped deposition, echoes Kwan, saying simply that since Ridder did “represent” that he was able to work for Avista, the question of non-competes never came up.

* Ridder concedes that one of the Pioneer Press executives he attempted to bring with him, Jennifer Parratt, continued to work at the Pioneer Press for a week after agreeing to terms at the Star Tribune, unbeknownst of course to MediaNews.

* Ridder admits that when the Pioneer Press asked for the USB drive back, the one with all the confidential, downloaded sales and advertising data, he sent over instead a new, still-in-the-box $40 jump drive, thinking it was the hardware they were concerned about.

As I say, I have no legal expertise whatsoever, but I would not like to put a happy face on this litany of incompetence, hubris or worse.

During a break midway through the proceedings, I stopped Dean Singleton in the hallway and asked, “Have these guys [referring to Avista] offered to settle this thing? Because based on what I’ve just seen I’d be astonished if they haven’t.”

Singleton, who walks with a cane, pivoted and looked at me. “I can’t say anything about that. But if you’re astonished you’d be right.”

Thanks to a friend with HBO On-Demand I finally saw The Sopranos finale. I watched it yesterday, ten days or 10,000 news cycles and alternating waves of outrage, acclaim and, (see Bill and Hillary’s variation), iconic parody later. A week and a half ago, when I realized I wasn’t going to “share the moment” with the rest of Soprano fan-dom, I began treating my delayed gratification like a kind of psychological experiment. How exactly would time and evolving conventional wisdom affect my impression?

Had I seen it “live” 10 days earlier I’m quite sure I would have been among the, “WTF!” crowd hurling my half-eaten cannoli and Sangiovese at the screen and denouncing David Chase for one of the great show biz con jobs of all time. My pet theory had a Livia-like snake twisting through sister Janice’s brain until she was convinced that Tony was to blame for Bobby’s death. (Not that I ever thought she was ever all that passionate for Bobby. He was convenient and serviceable. But getting stuck with the two kids and being left alone … )

One of the great beauties of The Sopranos was that it held out a couple dozen equally plausible and acceptable endings, each so densely connected to well-exposed pathologies, grudges, vendettas, misapprehensions and borderline lunacy that any one of them could have worked and stood the test of time as a pop classic. I hadn’t quite decided if Janice would whack Tony directly, like she whacked Richie Aprile. But at the very least I could see her getting to a place where she could rationalize a decision to give away Tony’s hiding place to the Leotardo crew.

Or, screw Janice … the Russian could come slogging out of the Pine Barrens just as Tony and Phil brokered a peace.

In my theory I also had Tony and Carmela losing one of the kids as collateral damage. It was the high price that I believed Carmela in particular needed to pay for turning a blind eye to the sociopathic viciousness that supported her genteel and nurturing lifestyle. But that was probably just the old altar boy in me. You know, it was like, “Say nine rosaries, make a good act of contrition and sacrifice your first or second born. Now, go my child and sin no more.”

Over the course of 10 days, through the pervasiveness of media and intensity of focus on “the talker of the day”, I had more or less inadvertently seen the last 15 seconds maybe 10 times. The restaurant location, Tony’s shirt, Meadow’s parking job, the onion rings, the guy in the Members Only jacket, the teenagers petting in their booth … each little piece had already entered pop mythology. Hell, home videos of the film crew shooting that night in front of Holsten’s restaurant were up on YouTube.

More significantly, fans and film world colleagues of Chase’s had weighed in with their reactions to the now classic — whether you liked it or not — black-out ending.

Damon Lindelhof, one of the creators of Lost, an imaginative show that basically wasted an entire season — the one before last — trying to figure out how to stretch itself into a long-running TV classic, declared Chase’s choice of the black-out, “letter perfect.” Personally, I thought differently when I first saw a clip of the last seconds. Having invested perhaps too much time and interest in Twin Peaks and The X-Files and been left exasperated at their lazy, haphazard, ill-thought out conclusions, I watched Meadow run up to the door, Tony look up, the screen go black and thought, “A self-conscious cop-out. Way too easy to be artful. In the end even David Chase didn’t know where to turn for the exit door.”

Then I watched the entire hour. Millions of electrons have already been wasted analyzing that last hour. Tony visits Sil. Tony visits Uncle Junior. Tony visits Janice, (on the upper deck of her soul-less McMansion). Tony puts the squeeze on an aged, wary Paulie. There’s a lot of conclusive stuff going down, even before Tony grabs the ketchup bottle away from Hesh the lawyer, who has told him there’s an “80-90% chance you’ll be indicted.”

But three moments stick with me. A couple of them fairly small.

The first is the reaction of the FBI agent, the one who tipped Tony, (while shacked up with his FBI colleague goomah), to the news that, “Phil Leotardo got popped.” He swivels in his desk chair and exults, “Damn!We’re going to win this thing!”

Having orchestrated Phil’s whacking, this suggests other ducks … ducks! … are actually in the order the Feds hoped they would be to close down the rest of the mob with one strategic pinch — Tony.

Next is just a curious shot as Tony enters Holsten’s. First, we see Tony in the doorway. Then we get Tony’s point of view of the crowded restaurant. He’s looking for a booth. Then we get a split second cut-away, almost a wipe. And then we’re back to the same POV as before. Only this time Tony is IN the shot, nestled inconspicuously in a booth in the middle of the room. The effect suggests Tony seeing himself.

Having long since conceded that Chase does very little of this through sloppiness or accident — a lot of perverse why the f**k not humor, yes, but sloppiness, no — I’ve decided it is a shot worth deconstructing. Unfortunately, the best I’ve come up with in two days is Tony’s desire to see himself as “normal” and just melt away from constant scrutiny.

I know. I know. Even I don’t like that one. But it is an intriguing sequence.

In fact, the blocking of the entire Holsten’s restaurant scene is worthy of a film school term paper. We see the guy in the Member’s Only jacket at the bar looking toward Tony. Does Tony see him? We’re not sure. The guy begins to turn away. We get a new angle from behind the Sopranos’ table, looking toward the bar. The family is in focus. The background with the Members Only guy is blurred. But we see him completing his turn away from looking toward their table.

The final bit is a line that hangs with me. It is AJ quoting Tony back at himself, “Try to remember the times that were good.” (Hillary reminds Bill of this in their parody … before she drops a quarter on … Celine Dion?????) Tony has either forgotten the advice or is so surprised that AJ, his screwed-up, depressed, much-too-much like his father child has rallied enough from self-absorbed misery to display a glimmer of adult wisdom that he looks like he’s forgotten.

Whatever. The line could play as fatefully ominous, as though Tony’s opportunities to remember anything are rapidly coming to a close. Or, it can be taken as a less fatal continuation, with Tony perhaps having a great deal of time to spend remembering “the times that were good”.

All the while Journey sings, ” … on and on and on and on …”. Until Tony looks up as the band cries, “Stop”.

So yeah. I’ve come around. It was a terrific ending. Like I say, I can imagine a couple dozen others that would have been so good no one would have complained and most of us would have dusted a place in the pantheon alongside the first two Godfathers and GoodFellas.

But my best guess, a little of which comes from brief conversations with guy a couple times, is that Chase is so proud and iconoclastic that he could not bear — on a genuine artistic level — to let his story conclude in any way that might seem derivative. He played 86 episodes against the “type” of the other 5000 or so mob characters dotting American pop culture. It would have been unnatural and arrhythmic for him to close the curtain in any way that smacked conventional.

By the humor and the middle-class ambitions and anxieties alone, (the mob boss and his shrink), The Sopranos was always on a separate, more personal and modernistic track than Francis Coppola’s operatic mob films. Chase knew he had to take a different door out.

From France, where he fled to escape the blowback from the finale, he told a reporter, “It’s all there.” Meaning, if you care to look, you’ll find enough clues to give yourself an answer to what comes next. (He might as well have added, “if you need one.”)

Your answer, mine and Chases’ might all be different. But on delayed first viewing there’s enough “there” to make any of them play.

Damn, I’m going to miss that show.

Strib Publisher Par Ridder confirmed the four-out-of-a-possible-five block real estate sale to the Vikings with the following memo.

Do note all the fraternally united, brothers-in-arms “team” verbiage; “we,” “our,” “us.”

.
.
.

Our real estate deal with the Vikings

by Par Ridder, Publisher and CEO

June 20, 2007 –

“It’s official. We have a signed deal with the Vikings to buy all our property around the Metrodome – except the 425 Portland building. This is obviously a very big deal for us, with considerable upside. But it will also require us to make some adjustments over the next couple of years. The money we receive from the sale will go to pay down debt and improve our overall financial health. This is a considerable benefit.

“But the sale means we will need to move all the employees who are now in the Freeman building into the Portland building. We have hired a space-planning firm to help us figure out how to do this. We’re sure we have enough space in Portland for everyone, provided we efficiently redesign the space. This will take some time – maybe up to 12 months for some. But this is something we would have done even if the Vikings had not bought the Freeman building because it is so much more economical to operate in one building instead of two.”

The note goes on to mention that the company parking lots, where Strib employees can park for something like $45 a month, (or $50 to $70 less than normal monthly downtown rates on the east end), will be rented from the Vikings until the end of 2008 … but Par doesn’t say anything about how much that rent might be, or what “we” (Strib working stiffs) might soon be shelling out to the Vikings.

While I find it hard to imagine Zygi Wilf and the Vikings subsidizing the Star Tribune’s employees, “we” have to assume that Mr. Ridder and Avista took care of “us” (a.k.a. their employees) and negotiated a continuance of a nice discount/perk worth anywhere from $600-$800 in, “straight cash, homey,” as Randy Moss used to say.

I mean those are “our” parking lots, for use by “us.” Where else would “we” find a deal like that?

Calls have placed to the usual suspects, and “we” will update ASAP.

With all the attention on various executive fiascos and staff reductions at the Star Tribune, the situation at the Pioneer Press has received relatively little coverage lately. My apologies there. But last night saw a brief (one-hour) and reasonably cordial opening round of contract negotiations between the Newspaper Guild and new owner, MediaNews, headed by Denver tycoon, Dean Singleton.

In visits to St. Paul since buying the paper from McClatchy last year Singleton — when he wasn’t fielding questions about what Par Ridder did or didn’t steal as he jumped over to the Star Tribune — made no secret that he was going seriously impact if not wages, his employees’ benefit packages, starting with a freeze on pensions.

The Guild has a post up on its website laying out the specific issues to be fought over this summer. The post it includes an eloquent opening statement from Jim Ragsdale, a former reporter, for a long time at the capitol, and now the sole inhabitant of the Pioneer Press editorial department.

In the statement Ragsdale says this:

“The people before you, and the people we represent, are hardy survivors of these dramatic changes. We’ve been through waves of cutbacks. Decades of experience have been lost. A large part of our corporate personality is gone. We grieved those losses … and moved on. And we have chosen to stay and fight for a newspaper we believe in. Just like (MediaNews) is fighting for the newspaper we all believe in.

“We have already paid a price for our company’s decision to make itself smaller.

“Many of us are doing several jobs or have been moved to previously unfamiliar turf. That’s a challenge we’ve willingly taken on. I’m the lone editorial writer in an office that had five writers a few years ago. I’m doing the work of several people. I love my job and am proud of what we have done. I alone have helped the company save hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in salary and benefits. My salary and benefits have not improved.”

Ragsdale is right, of course. But it is hard to see where the Guild has any leverage at all with Singleton. With the very murky, deep background entanglements MediaNews and (Star Tribune owner) Avista have over the Par Ridder law suit, Avista’s short-term interest in newspaper ownership in Minnesota and the increasing likelihood of a merger of the two papers, (where Singleton could just as easily gain overall ownership as anyone else), every indication is that the Guild will have to take even further hits to its compensation package.

Caught on the way into work this morning and asked if the Guild was prepared to stand adamant on any specific issue, or if everything was up for negotiation, (I didn’t have the heart to use the word, “concession”), Ragsdale said, “Look, all we want is a fair and valid contract. We don’t pretend these are great times. And we see in some of their demands, [like removing a dozen or so “Team Leaders” from the Guild], things they’ve wanted to do for a long time. But at this point nobody has seen their finances. So its hard to say what their situation really is.”

The next negotiating session will probably come after the 4th of July holiday.

Oh, in case you haven’t got the time to click through to Ragsdale’s full statement. Here’s another choice bit, as Ragsdale began by commending MediaNews for its aggressive pursuit of young Ridder.

“We’d like to begin with the Par Ridder case,” said Ragsdale, “which was an important event for us. We thank you for standing up for the Pioneer Press after Par’s defection and thefts and lies. This legal battle could turn out to be one of our newspaper’s finest moments.”

To say Par Ridder left few friends and fewer admirers in St. Paul would be a significant understatement.

I’m just not betting that Singleton and MediaNews will leave town — whenever they do — with any more than Ridder.

In a memorable quote to City Pages’ Paul Demko, Star Tribune editor Nancy Barnes tried to explain the rationale behind mobilizing troops toward the suburbs, Bloomington in particular.

Demko wrote: “Editor Barnes concedes that ‘it’s been a difficult week,’ but says her mission remains the same: more online, more in-depth coverage like the paper’s 3M investigation, and more feet on the ground in communities outside Minneapolis. ‘Bloomington is the fifth-largest city in the state…we don’t cover Bloomington,’ Barnes says. ‘People who live outside of Minneapolis have to see coverage of their communities.’

On the face of it it’s hard to disagree. There are something like 85,000 people in Bloomington. There’s got to be a story or two worth telling. And obviously if you’re going to stand your diminished newsroom on its head conscripting reporters from all manner of other beats to send them to the leafy ‘burbs, the assumption is that you’re going to do it right and really provide constant, thorough coverage of … Minnesota’s fifth biggest city.

The one mistake you’re for sure not going to make is just talking the talk without walking the walk. I mean, since this is critical, we know there is going to be a battalion of reporters combing the streets and courts and offices of The Fifth Biggest City, showing those punk-ass Sun papers (and their small business advertisers) how the game is played in the big leagues.

Right?

Right?

Cut to: A short phone conversation with Star Tribune reporter, Mary Jane Smetanka, best known for the last 11 years she’s spent covering higher education.

Me: Mary Jane, Brian Lambert over at The Rake. I’ve been following the goings on over at your place.

Smetanka: I know.

Me: Yeah, and you know how it goes, one thing leads to another. I just want check something out.

Smetanka: OK.

Me: Is it true that you are the new Bloomington reporter?

Smtanka: Yes, it is.

Me: Is it also true that you are the new Edina reporter?

Smetanka: Yes, it is.

Me: Is it true that you are also the “Aging” reporter?

Smetanka: Yes, it is.

Me: And are you the only reporter so far assigned to Bloomington and Edina?

Smetanka: Yes, I am.

As with all these Strib items, I have sent Strib editors Nancy Barnes and Scott Gillespie e-mails asking for their response to the question of the moment.

Here is my e-mail on this one:

“Nancy, Scott:

“Today … I’m told that one reporter has been assigned to cover Bloomington, Edina and Aging. Is that accurate? Will more reporters be added soon, as in the next couple months? If not, doesn’t strike you as ironic considering your stated mission to better cover the larger suburbs?

“Also, will there be any change in CJ’s job description? Is the cast of columnists set? Will Coleman, Kersten and CJ continue doing what they have been doing?”

As always, if either Barnes or Gillespie chooses to respond, I’ll attach their comments here.

But until then we are left with the irony of one reporter — admittedly a veteran — assigned to not one, not two, but THREE beats of some significance. Smetanka is a 23-year Strib pro and will no doubt produce quality copy. But, come on, if you’re serious about people outside Minneapolis, (even a block outside Minneapolis), seeing coverage of their communities, are we really supposed to believe that one reporter can provide anything close to thorough coverage of two large first-ring suburbs with a combined population of 135,000 AND cover “Aging”, too?

In the interests of community journalism, I hereby promise to toss Smetanka every scoop I come across while prowling the dark, dangerous and scandal-ridden streets of Edina. Why just yesterday, while sipping a latte and reading the new film schedule in the window of the Edina Theater, I saw a vandal in a late model Saab enter the city from Minneapolis at speeds in excess of the posted limit and flick a cigarette on the pavement.

That’s gotta be worth 10″ of copy. The Edina cops may have security cam video.

Oh … that CJ stuff? I’m not sure. I’ve left a couple calls for the Twin Cities’ gossip maven, but oddly, our girl seems to be dodging me.

Commenting on my previous post about the Avista-Zygi Wilf real estate deal(s) and the importance of high transparency on the part of the Strib as it reports and comments on the story, “bart” asks the following:

“What’s the basis of the charge that Avista currently or will direct positive coverage of the potential stadium? Is that how it worked at the Pioneer Press when Xcel was a story? Or with your TV column? Just wondering. In my experience, journalists are interested in news, so a new stadium might be more interesting than no stadium. But I’ve never witnessed a publisher or owners directly influence non-editorial (news) coverage. You do play fast and loose here, don’t you, Brian?”

In response, the key element here — the unique element — is that Avista Capital Partners is NOT a newspaper or journalism company. It is a highly private investment group with a short term mission here in the Twin Cities. As stated by Avista’s top editor, Nancy Barnes, they are probably interested in only a half decade ownership at most.

I hope the speculative nature of the post was obvious enough for most readers. Mine may be a nutball “black helicopter” scenario. And yes, in a normal situation front line editors would react very negatively to orders/”suggestions” to hype up a project with so stark a set of conflicts of interest.

But these aren’t ordinary times. In addition to Avista having no experience (and demonstrable patience) with newspapers, the accelerating rate of revenue decline at the Star Tribune should lead reasonable people to ask what a “major daily” in the Twin Cities will look like in another three years, and what current owners and managers might do to insure the return promised to their investors?

Am I intensely skeptical that Avista is interested in the long-term health of Minnesota’s largest news outlet? Yes I am. But for the moment I’m urging equal skepticism on the Strib staff and the public more than I’m “charging” them with anything.