Here is the false and misleading article published by the Union-Tribune. This lawsuit is most definitely NOT settled. There was a trial verdict on October 3, 2012, but no settlement. The case is quite likely headed to the Court of Appeal. Why would anyone want the public to believe it was settled? I have some ideas about that.
Suit settled in favor of former Del Mar Superintendent
Lyndsay Winkley
U-T San Diego
Oct. 9, 2012
A lawsuit between Del Mar school’s former Superintendent Sharon McClain and the district was settled last week in McClain’s favor after more than two years of legal battle.
Superior Court Judge John Meyer ordered the Del Mar Union School District to pay $388,537 plus about $30,000 in interest after ruling McClain was wrongfully terminated.
Board members did not talk specifics about McClain’s termination throughout the legal proceedings, citing the lawsuit, but a negative performance evaluation from McClain’s tenure was submitted as support for the district’s position during the case.
“You are openly hostile to the current Board President, you complain to Board members about other Board members, and you complain to District staff about the Board,” the evaluation said. “You have positioned yourself as fighting against the Board instead of being part of a governance team.”
McClain submitted a rebuttal saying she felt the board was committed to finding problems with her performance to fire her.
Trustees voted to oust McClain at a March 2010 board meeting, called only two days prior. Still, the board room was packed with parents, and all speakers, nearly 30, supported McClain. In a 3-1-1 vote, she was fired.
Two current trustees took part in the 2010 vote. Trustee Doug Perkins voted in favor of firing McClain, while Trustee Comischell Rodriguez opposed it. Neither responded to emails Tuesday for comment. McClain also did not respond to emails for comment.
Del Mar’s school district has spent more than $700,000 in the last four years on settlements for two superintendents.
[Maura Larkins comment: This statement is false, since not one cent has been paid in any settlement with Sharon McClain, and the district has NO plan to settle with McClain. More importantly, this article fails to tell us how much the district spent on three full-time lawyers during the trial, and for two years of depositions and motions preceding the trial.]
The board bought out Tom Bishop’s contract for more than $300,000 in 2008. McClain was hired in summer 2008.
Current Superintendent Holly McClurg is the fourth to hold the position in four years, following former Superintendent James Peabody, who retired in June.
THE BIZARRE REPORTING OF U-T SAN DIEGO
On October 9, 2012 I added the following to my own blog post about the Sharon McClain trial:
"To its shame, U-T San Diego has not reported on the trial outcome in this case, although it published the details of the district's criticisms of McClain."
Later that day, at 6:28 p.m., U-T San Diego published the bizarre and false headline, "Suit settled in favor of former Del Mar Superintendent."
But this lawsuit is most definitely NOT settled. There was a trial verdict, but no settlement. The case is quite likely headed to the Court of Appeal. Why would anyone want the public to believe it was settled?
I think the answer is clear. Many people claimed that the district would settle to avoid paying huge amounts to lawyers. The opposite is true. The system is set up so that lawyers, rather than wronged employees and students, receive the largesse of school insurer SDCOE-JPA (San Diego County Office of Education). SDCOE's Diane Crosier used to work in Dan Shinoff's law firm, and Mr. Shinoff was involved in hiring Ms. Crosier at SDCOE.
A reasonable person would conclude that the court had actually overseen a settlement of the case. The word "trial" does not occur anywhere in the U-T article. The article refers to "legal proceedings" and mentions the name of the judge, and includes a recitation of board complaints against McClain.
The name of Dan Shinoff is entirely missing from the U-T article. Interestingly, the Union-Tribune completely failed to cover the sexual harassment lawsuit that Mr. Shinoff lost on behalf of his long-time client Patrick Judd, former superintendent of Mountain Empire Unified School District and former board member of CVESD, although the Union-Tribune had endorsed Mr. Judd repeatedly.
Here's the comment I posted on the U-T article:
There was a trial, not a settlement, in this case.
This article states: "Del Mar’s school district has spent more than $700,000 in the last four years on settlements for two superintendents."
This statement is false, since not one cent has been paid in any settlement with Sharon McClain, and the district has NO plan to settle with McClain.
More importantly, this article fails to tell us how much the district spent on three full-time lawyers during the trial, and for two years of depositions and motions preceding the trial.
Obviously, the district should have settled with McClain in the beginning.
U-T San Diego leadership:
Douglas F. Manchester Chairman & Publisher
John T. Lynch Vice Chairman & CEO john.lynch@utsandiego.com
Mike Hodges President & Chief Operating Officer mike.hodges@utsandiego.com 619-293-1104
Jeff Light Editor, Vice President jeff.light@utsandiego.com 619-293-1201
Joe Brenneman Chief Revenue Officer joe.brenneman@utsandiego.com 619-293-1500
Mike Glickenhaus Vice President, Strategic Sales mike.glickenhaus@utsandiego.com 619-293-2161
Dan Hellbusch Vice President, Audience/Business Development & Strategic Partnerships dan.hellbusch@utsandiego.com 619-718-1484
Tom Jimenez Vice President, Spanish-Language products tom.jimenez@utsandiego.com 619-293-1568
Ryan Kiesel Vice President, Chief Financial Officer ryan.kiesel@utsandiego.com 619-293-1117
Kris Viesselman Vice President, Product Development & Chief Creative Officer kris.viesselman@utsandiego.com 619-293-2235
Harry Woldt Vice President, Circulation & Distribution harry.woldt@utsandiego.com 619-293-1601
Opinion
Steve Breen Editorial cartoonist steve.breen@utsandiego.com 619-293-1230
U-T San Diego Editorial Board 619-293-1395
Blanca Gonzalez Community opinion editor blanca.gonzalez@utsandiego.com 619-293-1241
William Osborne Editorial editor bill.osborne@utsandiego.com 619-293-1395
Chris Reed Editorial writer chris.reed@utsandiego.com 619-293-1511
Joe Taylor Letters editor joe.taylor@utsandiego.com 619-293-1789
[It looks like Don Sevrens, who hid the truth about Castle Park Elementary School as he was publishing hysterical stories and letters, is gone. It's not much of a loss for education reporting.]
SADLY, THE NORTH COUNTY TIMES HAS BEEN BOUGHT BY THE OWNER OF THE U-T.
We are close to having a newspaper monopoly in San Diego.
For years, the North County Times has done a good job reporting on schools. It seems that this is changing since the NCT was recently purchased by Doug Manchester, owner of U-T San Diego.
Showing posts with label . Manchester (Doug Manchester). Show all posts
Showing posts with label . Manchester (Doug Manchester). Show all posts
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Democrats are not invited to U-T San Diego's "One-Stop Shop" main event for candidates
No Democrats were invited to big event for U-T San Diego.
U-T San Diego’s one-stop-shop flop
GOP gets paper’s CEO and Hedgecock; Dems don’t
By John R. Lamb
City Beat
Sep 26, 2012
U-T San Diego editor Jeff Light told the four people who attended the second leg of the conservative paper’s “One-Stop Shop for Candidates” event two weeks ago that they were kept separate from the local GOP version “to keep the peace.”
Spin Cycle has no idea if Light was joking, but he needn’t have worried, for the Mission Valley headquarters of hotelier/developer Doug Manchester’s spreading media empire remained standing the next day.
Billed as two “exciting evenings” to showcase the U-T’s sputtering evolution into an “innovative new media company” and provide insight into “how to get noticed by the press” and “how does one get endorsed,” the differences and similarities between the Sept. 11 and Sept. 13 productions were indicative of the company’s political underpinnings.
The most notable difference was in who showed up, according to accounts of the proceedings provided to Spin Cycle. Although invitations for both events proclaimed that U-T Vice Chairman and CEO John Lynch would make “introductory remarks,” he bothered to do so only for the 50 or so conservative brothers and a handful of sisters at the Sept. 11 Republican gathering.
Of course, it was that day that the Lynch / Manchester duo had lifted its leg on the U-T’s latest conquest, the Escondido-based North County Times, whose acquisition by Manchester is set to conclude Oct. 1.
Mention of that to the GOP choir packed in the U-T’s Manchester Boardroom that night drew hoots and applause, which seemed to fire up the jock in Lynch.
“I think that allows such incredible opportunity. My kids went to school in North County, and they’ve always had an incredible heritage of fabulous prep sports and family coverage up there,” Lynch told the Republican crowd. “We can really make an impact because the North County is about who we are.”
He hinted at undetermined “plans” of “joining the papers together” and of future conquests—Manchester is rumored to be interested in snapping up the Chicago-based, bankruptcy-mired Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times—“to really create a great business with this same type of model across the country.”
If that isn’t enough to make progressives and working journalists queasy, Lynch also described his vision of changing “the political landscape in each community in terms of really supporting the values that we stand for, and that’s loving our country and loving America again,” as if somehow the Manchester / Lynch team has a lock on that market, too.
Lynch referred to local GOP honcho and “retired” video-game hacker Tony Krvaric, sitting in the audience, as a “terrific friend and partner” and lauded the fluffy profile of him that ran recently in the U-T as the kind of “good news” about “people who make a difference in our community” that Manchester—who did not attend either event—wants to provide.
Krvaric stumbled through a few laudatory sentences about “Papa Doug” (Disclosure: Spin Cycle has decided to no longer use the self-appointed paternal moniker that Manchester insists on, citing the ridiculousness of it) and bootlicked his “media powerhouse.”
“It takes a lot of guts,” the San Diego County Republican Party chairman gushed. “You are the ultimate risk takers…. There are some people that will try to take risk out of the system, which means you take opportunity out of the system. Then we’re all going to be equally miserable just like in Europe.”
Lynch said the “nationwide” coverage of the U-T’s growth plans—mostly negative—“mystifies” him. “I keep saying, ‘I’m such a nice guy!’ How could they say that?” he said to an eruption of laughter. He then turned the floor over to Mike Hodges, the man charged with turning the U-T into a multimedia dynamo of dominance. Lynch heaped praise on Hodges before going all Darth Vader on him by saying, “You better damn well hit the numbers!”
“It always comes back to the numbers, right, John?” Hodges nervously responded.
Hodges boasted about the emergence of UT-TV, the laugh-track of a television station that features, as one attendee noted, “silicon-laden blondes” who are challenged to speak in whole sentences.
Despite the newsroom and editorial staffs having been decimated by layoffs—opinion “director” Bill Osborne even noted with disdain that the once-robust 14-member editorial board has been slashed to four, with only two writers, making endorsements for the third-tier candidates who made up the majority of attendees difficult—UT-TV staffing has grown to 60, said the star of the Republican evening, loose conservative cannon Roger Hedgecock...
U-T San Diego’s one-stop-shop flop
GOP gets paper’s CEO and Hedgecock; Dems don’t
By John R. Lamb
City Beat
Sep 26, 2012
U-T San Diego editor Jeff Light told the four people who attended the second leg of the conservative paper’s “One-Stop Shop for Candidates” event two weeks ago that they were kept separate from the local GOP version “to keep the peace.”
Spin Cycle has no idea if Light was joking, but he needn’t have worried, for the Mission Valley headquarters of hotelier/developer Doug Manchester’s spreading media empire remained standing the next day.
Billed as two “exciting evenings” to showcase the U-T’s sputtering evolution into an “innovative new media company” and provide insight into “how to get noticed by the press” and “how does one get endorsed,” the differences and similarities between the Sept. 11 and Sept. 13 productions were indicative of the company’s political underpinnings.
The most notable difference was in who showed up, according to accounts of the proceedings provided to Spin Cycle. Although invitations for both events proclaimed that U-T Vice Chairman and CEO John Lynch would make “introductory remarks,” he bothered to do so only for the 50 or so conservative brothers and a handful of sisters at the Sept. 11 Republican gathering.
Of course, it was that day that the Lynch / Manchester duo had lifted its leg on the U-T’s latest conquest, the Escondido-based North County Times, whose acquisition by Manchester is set to conclude Oct. 1.
Mention of that to the GOP choir packed in the U-T’s Manchester Boardroom that night drew hoots and applause, which seemed to fire up the jock in Lynch.
“I think that allows such incredible opportunity. My kids went to school in North County, and they’ve always had an incredible heritage of fabulous prep sports and family coverage up there,” Lynch told the Republican crowd. “We can really make an impact because the North County is about who we are.”
He hinted at undetermined “plans” of “joining the papers together” and of future conquests—Manchester is rumored to be interested in snapping up the Chicago-based, bankruptcy-mired Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times—“to really create a great business with this same type of model across the country.”
If that isn’t enough to make progressives and working journalists queasy, Lynch also described his vision of changing “the political landscape in each community in terms of really supporting the values that we stand for, and that’s loving our country and loving America again,” as if somehow the Manchester / Lynch team has a lock on that market, too.
Lynch referred to local GOP honcho and “retired” video-game hacker Tony Krvaric, sitting in the audience, as a “terrific friend and partner” and lauded the fluffy profile of him that ran recently in the U-T as the kind of “good news” about “people who make a difference in our community” that Manchester—who did not attend either event—wants to provide.
Krvaric stumbled through a few laudatory sentences about “Papa Doug” (Disclosure: Spin Cycle has decided to no longer use the self-appointed paternal moniker that Manchester insists on, citing the ridiculousness of it) and bootlicked his “media powerhouse.”
“It takes a lot of guts,” the San Diego County Republican Party chairman gushed. “You are the ultimate risk takers…. There are some people that will try to take risk out of the system, which means you take opportunity out of the system. Then we’re all going to be equally miserable just like in Europe.”
Lynch said the “nationwide” coverage of the U-T’s growth plans—mostly negative—“mystifies” him. “I keep saying, ‘I’m such a nice guy!’ How could they say that?” he said to an eruption of laughter. He then turned the floor over to Mike Hodges, the man charged with turning the U-T into a multimedia dynamo of dominance. Lynch heaped praise on Hodges before going all Darth Vader on him by saying, “You better damn well hit the numbers!”
“It always comes back to the numbers, right, John?” Hodges nervously responded.
Hodges boasted about the emergence of UT-TV, the laugh-track of a television station that features, as one attendee noted, “silicon-laden blondes” who are challenged to speak in whole sentences.
Despite the newsroom and editorial staffs having been decimated by layoffs—opinion “director” Bill Osborne even noted with disdain that the once-robust 14-member editorial board has been slashed to four, with only two writers, making endorsements for the third-tier candidates who made up the majority of attendees difficult—UT-TV staffing has grown to 60, said the star of the Republican evening, loose conservative cannon Roger Hedgecock...
Friday, November 18, 2011
Doug Manchester, the new San Diego Union-Tribune owner, thinks of himself as Richard III
November 18, 2011
Paper Will Call Out Stadium Opponents as 'Obstructionists'
Randy Dotinga
Voice of San Diego
Local hotel magnate Doug Manchester is buying The San Diego Union-Tribune, and heads are going to spin, if not roll: the paper's incoming president and CEO promises big changes.
John Lynch, a former local radio exec who's set to be that top boss, "said he wants the paper to be pro-business. The sports page to be pro-Chargers stadium. And reporters to become stars," our Rob Davis reports. In fact, Lynch said he wants the sports page to "call out those who don't (support a new stadium) as obstructionists."
Wow. However, Lynch said he expects that Manchester will "respect journalistic integrity" and adds that "we'd like to be a cheerleader for all that's good about San Diego."
Manchester says he paid above $110 million for the newspaper. That suggests the Platinum Equity firm, which bought the paper in 2009, made a tidy profit by flipping it.
Both Manchester and Lynch are known for their conservative bona-fides; in 2006, Lynch referred to then-Councilman Donna Frye, an iconoclast politician and hero not only to liberals, as "to the left of Mao."
So who's Manchester? Local reporter Tony Perry of the L.A. Times calls him "a minor league Donald Trump."
He's a polarizing figure, known for the moniker he insists on people using ("Papa Doug"), his stand against gay marriage (although he says he's not anti-gay and supports domestic partnerships), his luxurious hotels (a five-star rating for one of them made a big splash in the U-T this week), his push toward development (a state agency just rejected his mammoth $1.3 billion project planned on Navy property downtown) and his divorce after 43 years of marriage (it was messy).
* Check our reader's guide for a look back at the U-T's road from the glory days of the mid-2000s to post-boom heartache and dashed dreams under Copley ownership.
* News of the sale immediately sparked anger and threats of subscription cancellations. ("Manchester and his politics scare the **** out of me," wrote commenter Bill Paul, while Chris Brewster bemoaned "this unfortunate devolution in San Diego journalism.")
Fred Smith complained that the Copleys were "were extreme libs" (a comment that will send eyebrows rocketing skyward all over town) and says he "refused to read the rag when the Copleys ran it into the ground," while Darrell Thomas referred to "extreme left rags" like... the L.A. Times. (The sound you hear is even more wayward eyebrows.)
And then there's commenter David Hall. He weighed in with a zinger: "I don't think the UT has been consistently left or right. It has, however, been consistently bad."
In the U-T's defense, bashing the local rag has been a national pasttime since the first time headlines met hot type.
For more opinions, check our compilation of Twitter comments.
* And what of U-T employees? They're already sucking up to ... er, greeting their new owner. "We believe this is a step in the right direction for The San Diego Union-Tribune," the U-T's "Team" declared on Facebook. "As Dean Nelson pointed out, Doug Manchester is a brilliant guy. We're excited to have local owners who are in-touch with what's going on in our city and we look forward to the amazing things the future holds for our newspaper."
The U-T's story about the sale included not a discouraging word (or even a slightly non-positive one) about the paper or the owners, but had plenty of things-are-just-peachy verbiage.
We have two principal stories: one immediate analysis looking at the sale and getting reaction, and a second turning to the biggest question: in what direction do Manchester and Lynch take the news and editorial pages.
Tidbits about the U-T's New Owner
* A video on Manchester's website quotes a man identified as Jim Jameson as saying: "If Shakespeare were alive today, Shakespeare wouldn't write about most of us. But he would write about Doug Manchester. In the sense of Richard III or Julius Caesar, Doug has heroic qualities that are just extraordinary. He also has the human frailties that we all have. So that the mentions of these heroic qualities and frailties together, Shakespeare would write about today."
The video is, as San Diego Magazine puts it, "super odd."
Richard III and Julius Caesar, by the way, didn't come to good ends, either in real life or in Shakespeare's plays. (Maybe Manchester should watch his back, beware the ides of March and always keep a horse on hand?)
* As you might glean from the video, Manchester is not the humblest of men. San Diego Magazine found this quote on his website: "He creates and applies the magic that creates positive experiences. His memory-makers have routinely defined and enriched San Diego's skylines and landscapes. And when he reaches beyond San Diego, which he often does, his visions dot the landscape of America. This is what Papa Doug has done and from what he draws satisfaction."
Paper Will Call Out Stadium Opponents as 'Obstructionists'
Randy Dotinga
Voice of San Diego
Local hotel magnate Doug Manchester is buying The San Diego Union-Tribune, and heads are going to spin, if not roll: the paper's incoming president and CEO promises big changes.
John Lynch, a former local radio exec who's set to be that top boss, "said he wants the paper to be pro-business. The sports page to be pro-Chargers stadium. And reporters to become stars," our Rob Davis reports. In fact, Lynch said he wants the sports page to "call out those who don't (support a new stadium) as obstructionists."
Wow. However, Lynch said he expects that Manchester will "respect journalistic integrity" and adds that "we'd like to be a cheerleader for all that's good about San Diego."
Manchester says he paid above $110 million for the newspaper. That suggests the Platinum Equity firm, which bought the paper in 2009, made a tidy profit by flipping it.
Both Manchester and Lynch are known for their conservative bona-fides; in 2006, Lynch referred to then-Councilman Donna Frye, an iconoclast politician and hero not only to liberals, as "to the left of Mao."
So who's Manchester? Local reporter Tony Perry of the L.A. Times calls him "a minor league Donald Trump."
He's a polarizing figure, known for the moniker he insists on people using ("Papa Doug"), his stand against gay marriage (although he says he's not anti-gay and supports domestic partnerships), his luxurious hotels (a five-star rating for one of them made a big splash in the U-T this week), his push toward development (a state agency just rejected his mammoth $1.3 billion project planned on Navy property downtown) and his divorce after 43 years of marriage (it was messy).
* Check our reader's guide for a look back at the U-T's road from the glory days of the mid-2000s to post-boom heartache and dashed dreams under Copley ownership.
* News of the sale immediately sparked anger and threats of subscription cancellations. ("Manchester and his politics scare the **** out of me," wrote commenter Bill Paul, while Chris Brewster bemoaned "this unfortunate devolution in San Diego journalism.")
Fred Smith complained that the Copleys were "were extreme libs" (a comment that will send eyebrows rocketing skyward all over town) and says he "refused to read the rag when the Copleys ran it into the ground," while Darrell Thomas referred to "extreme left rags" like... the L.A. Times. (The sound you hear is even more wayward eyebrows.)
And then there's commenter David Hall. He weighed in with a zinger: "I don't think the UT has been consistently left or right. It has, however, been consistently bad."
In the U-T's defense, bashing the local rag has been a national pasttime since the first time headlines met hot type.
For more opinions, check our compilation of Twitter comments.
* And what of U-T employees? They're already sucking up to ... er, greeting their new owner. "We believe this is a step in the right direction for The San Diego Union-Tribune," the U-T's "Team" declared on Facebook. "As Dean Nelson pointed out, Doug Manchester is a brilliant guy. We're excited to have local owners who are in-touch with what's going on in our city and we look forward to the amazing things the future holds for our newspaper."
The U-T's story about the sale included not a discouraging word (or even a slightly non-positive one) about the paper or the owners, but had plenty of things-are-just-peachy verbiage.
We have two principal stories: one immediate analysis looking at the sale and getting reaction, and a second turning to the biggest question: in what direction do Manchester and Lynch take the news and editorial pages.
Tidbits about the U-T's New Owner
* A video on Manchester's website quotes a man identified as Jim Jameson as saying: "If Shakespeare were alive today, Shakespeare wouldn't write about most of us. But he would write about Doug Manchester. In the sense of Richard III or Julius Caesar, Doug has heroic qualities that are just extraordinary. He also has the human frailties that we all have. So that the mentions of these heroic qualities and frailties together, Shakespeare would write about today."
The video is, as San Diego Magazine puts it, "super odd."
Richard III and Julius Caesar, by the way, didn't come to good ends, either in real life or in Shakespeare's plays. (Maybe Manchester should watch his back, beware the ides of March and always keep a horse on hand?)
* As you might glean from the video, Manchester is not the humblest of men. San Diego Magazine found this quote on his website: "He creates and applies the magic that creates positive experiences. His memory-makers have routinely defined and enriched San Diego's skylines and landscapes. And when he reaches beyond San Diego, which he often does, his visions dot the landscape of America. This is what Papa Doug has done and from what he draws satisfaction."
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