Ethics Tenet Is on Trial in Minnesota

ETHICS TENET IS ON TRIAL IN MINNESOTA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
[Commentary] In the past few weeks, both The Minneapolis Star Tribune and The St. Paul Pioneer Press have been doing a bang-up job of covering a dramatic civil trial that has taken aim at one of the Twin Cities’ leading businessmen. The trial, and the accompanying coverage, has been full of allegations of bad faith, stolen data and riveting hallway commentary. Oops, I buried the lead: the businessman is Par Ridder, the former publisher of The Pioneer Press who left in March to become the publisher of The Star Tribune. Mr. Ridder, 39, the scion of the Ridder newspaper family, was the publisher of The St. Paul Pioneer Press when it was owned by Knight Ridder. It was sold to McClatchy, which also owned The Star Tribune. McClatchy then sold both papers — The Pioneer Press to MediaNews Group, a group of papers controlled by William Dean Singleton, and The Star Tribune to Avista Capital Group, a private equity group. In March, Par Ridder left The Pioneer Press and went to its competitor across the river, and it is alleged he took a few things with him, including a laptop containing extensive proprietary financial data, and, after a few weeks, a few key executives. In a civil suit, MediaNews alleged he violated noncompete agreements personally and by hiring others from the paper, that he removed those noncompete agreements from the newspapers files, and that he disseminated competitive financial data to other executives at his new posting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/business/media/09carr.html
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