Secrets of the City

I had a feeling this would get it’s own thread soon. See earlier talk here.

Way to bone your family, PAR.

Par Ridder perp walk:

Who’s he going to drag down with him?

Nice. Can someone with animated gif skillz make his head bobble?

This type of behavior is not on Par with what I expect from a newspaper publisher. Get Ridder of the guy!

/I know. I’m sorry.

Maybe the whole TC daily media establishment?

Maybe the whole TC daily media establishment?

Yeah. How much lower can it go?

Sounds like Par for the course….

lol@Par.

I wonder what the logic was behind taking the non-compete agreements out of the building. One would assume there would be duplicates of those agreements floating around somewhere (if they followed my filing system of legal documents, anyway), so it wouldn’t negate their existence or make them null and void if one copy disappeared.

Again: jackass. You can’t do something that flagrantly stupid and not expect to get caught.

soon enough, he’s going to be Par Boiled.

The par-tay is over

He’s a thief par-excellence.

he’s a mercenary, working for nobody in par-ticular.

par-don me, but do you mind if I steal your publisher?

I wonder what the logic was behind taking the non-compete agreements out of the building

repeating my cost (cots?) vs. benefits from the premature thread…I’m sure he looked long & hard @ the income benefit of leaving vs. the cost of the potential suits and (lacking any moral virtue and knowing he was going to be public enemy #1 anyhow) he made the call to steal the data.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Strib negotiated to cover his legal costs right in his employment contract, knowing full-well what the fallout would be.

If the Strib makes him walk the plank, OTOH, I almost feel bad for him. Na, just kidding.

Maybe conservative bloggers can start the campaign now for Governor Pawlenty to pardon Par Ridder, because as everyone knows, Bill Clinton and Sandy Berger commited far worse crimes, and the lapdog liberal media is covering it up.

What par of “wrong” don’t you understand?

Ridder said the executives were verbally released from those agreements, but he said it was never put in writing.

Well…so much for my assumption that he was trying to avoid perjuring himself. Unless, of course, he said to his bosses @ The PP, “hey, about those non-competes, can we just kind of waive those”, to which they sarcastically replied, “yeah, right”.

Has anyone seen Par Ridder and Mark Cuban in a room at the same time?

This is for you Max:

I would think that stealing that information would backfire. Does a local advertiser want to continue to do business with a company that would play that dirty to get their business? Maybe it’s a little Pollyanna of me to think so, but if I were the owner of a car dealership or something, I wouldn’t want to associate myself with a publication that has been so denigrated in the public eye by this kind of behavior.

One thing’s for sure: PiPress comes out of this whole thing smelling like a rose.

Has anyone seen Par Ridder and Mark Cuban in a room at the same time?

coming soon…to a Dairy Queen near you!

Maybe the whole TC daily media establishment?

Yeah. How much lower can it go?

How do you figure Par’s misdeeds have anything to do with the way the “whole TC daily media establishment” operates? He’s one guy.

Ridder said the executives were verbally released from those agreements, but he said it was never put in writing.

If you don’t get it in writing, it doesn’t count. Once again: jackass. And now: moron.

Right, but this legal battle is not going to be good for either paper.

enjoying the comments today (and the bobblehead — thanks DouglasG!)

keep thinking about Pat buying the Magers mansion and reminding myself that the rich ARE different from you and me. apparently they’re one heck of a lot dumber

if I were the owner of a car dealership or something, I wouldn’t want to associate myself with a publication that has been so denigrated in the public eye by this kind of behavior.

Yes…especially among a group of such high ethical regard, such as car dealers.

The Par Bobblehead will be making a comeback, I predict.

Oh, and Par after 3 days without hair gel:

Well, fine, then I own a coffee shop. Either way, in my mind, it doesn’t make good business sense to get yourself into a situation where you have to expose all of the dirty deals that are best left behind the scenes.

I think it’s a little Pollyanna of you to think so, josie. Want to buy a car? Or get in my hot tub?

See, this is why it’d be a waste of time and money for me to start my own business. I’d be the only one playing nice and I’d end up in the poorhouse.

Really, Mister, you have a hot tub? And you’ll give me a Snickers bar? I’ll ask my mom if I can come over!

reliable sources indicate that bobblehead Par was just forwarded to the entire Pi Press newsroom

and there’s a great picture of him on the Strib website, with a deer in the headlights kind of facial expression

I’m dying laughing, Douglas, thank you.

Now if only someone would LOLcat this deer-in-headlights picture of Par you speak of, my day would be complete.

great idea, josie but I will leave photo alterations to the younger, tech-savvy mnspeakers

maybe we need a Par caught in Dean Singleton’s headlights. Or maybe it doesn’t need alternations at all. that facial expression IS worth at least 1,000 words. . . too long for the typical dumbed-down Strib story these days

and I was going to (nicely) ask DpuglasG for dancing Par feet but then I remembered he probably should have his feet chained together

Par’s Par-p walk, captured by a STrib photographer.

http://www.startribune.com/535/story/1266979-a1267257-t3.html

Of Par, one of the usual suspects just said to me:

This guy is the ass-end of a proud dynasty. Like the Bushes.

A good summation. Perhaps I’ll embroider it onto a pillow and mail it to Par in the slammer

Boo! Those gutless Stribbers just took down the Par perp-walk picture!

I like afro-Par!

Reminds me of the day when I had to drive from lily-white Warren Township (now no longer white nor lilly) to “Black Indy” to buy an Ace black rubber pick for my new stylin’ Disco ‘Fro! Stopped off at Zeps on Indiana Avenue and had some ribs, with the famious Mambo sauce!

Sigh..

The link just worked for me.

Bobblehead Par is pretty funny.

no, the link is great (thanks, user)

but if you go to startribune.com you get a picture of singleton and then another less scary one of Par. that’s what I just saw on their web page. . .

no, the link is great (thanks, user)

but if you go to startribune.com you get a picture of singleton and then another less scary one of Par. that’s what I just saw on their web page. . .

Aaron, I bet you’ll lolPar for me. Come on! You’re a lolgenius!!

OK Josie…

but you owe me!

Par vs. President

A Par-don on the way from AVISTA?

YAY!!!! Thank you!!!

Anyone else detect a nose job?

I have piles of internet cookies for Doug and Aaron. Yay!!!!!

LOL
thanks DouglasG and s4xton and josie, too! heck, I’d bake you creative folks some real cookies (I’m a 4-H food judge)

I love the LOLParRidders.

What are you all doing talking like that about my boss? Don’t you know that he told us he is inocent? He said that he had nothing to do with it and we all believe him. So, stop talking about our leader like that.

That Parratt chick is SOL.

Stribboy, take me.

Good to see The Leader of The Free World has a handle on the issues.

Two doorks.

Can’t wait to hear what Kate Parry has to say about the flood of hatemail that the Strib is about to get over Par-Gate. If she had balls, she’d just publish her letter of resignation, as in, “I am above this sort of behavior, I’m so outta here”

Can’t wait to hear what Kate Parry has to say

She’ll blame it all on Alexis.

Take me, submitted by buyout. Excellent use of the anonymous name box. Well-done.

And Aaron, Par with the pile of shredded paper is priceless. Brilliant.

This all seems so incredibly amazing to me. It’s textbook violation of intellectual property and non-compete. I’m really quite speechless, actually, for maybe the first time in my life.

I keep thinking there’s got to be another side of the story or some good defense work, but if not, this is the most classic bungle of “duh” I’ve ever encountered.

Keep the LOLpart coming. It may be MnSpeak’s unique contribution to Twin Cities’ culture.

Well, that and dancing DeRusha.

Keep the LOLpart coming. It may be MnSpeak’s unique contribution to Twin Cities’ culture.

Now we’re really reaching to find something, anything that MnSpeak can contribute to the Twin Cities.

Quit gabbing and get back to LOLparing, Aaron.

I’ve noticed the star tribune has been making a habbit of copying articles directly from the Washington Post.

greatness

just spit summit scandia ale all over my keyboard

thank you.

grote…serious? Scandia???? That’s lame. Get back on the beer thread. Jesus. (Even though you think of him as a prophet.)

Bandini totally wins. OMFG.

Also, I am SO glad I asked for an LOLParRidder. Who knew the greatness that existed within the fertile minds of MNspeakers?

Goal Bandini! Goooooal!!!

Actually, Andrew, Jesus was way cool.

I know…I drank my last Furious while grilling and it was either raid the liquor cabinet or tap into S_rote’s beer stash, which was 6 Scandias…and weeks that start with Monday trips to the liquor cabinet usually don’t end well.

thanks bandini! laughed so hard I woke up my household’s two LOL cats
(josie thanks to you that is my new favorite time-wasting site)

can par come to the mnspeak gathering and entertain us? just read lambert’s piece in the rake on today’s court hearing and it is absolutely damning. this guy is soooo stupid. . . par, not lambert

http://www.rakemag.com/

This is another reason why I don’t trust the local news media. You got idiots like Pat Ridder, who manages to make a confession on a videotape that he stole private information from Pioneer Press workers, and therefore pass the information along to the partisan elites at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Perhaps what made this story even worse though is the fact that the Strib continues to deny that they have a problem with a form of journalism ethics, regarding Ridder tenure with the paper; they managed to create the biggest scandal in the history of the newspaper industry and these asses don’t want to admit the hard truth about it. So, as usual, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune goes into partisan hyper-drive by making up a misinformed, propaganda story in the business section about how Pat Ridder is seen as the victim of an unofficial crime that he didn’t commit.

It’s often worse when you see the news anchors on WCCO TV lying to you about a local political story at the state capitol or a crime report in the metro area that has no merit on the social, rational subject, but it is damaging for a known paper that always take on a extreme liberal position in the pleasure for the DFL elite in which the paper’s own editor and CEO is involved in a covert sting operation against his former company, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, for political reasons. Yet, this is why so many of us, especially the younger crowd, are switching over to the internet and web blogs for real news, not some MSM outlet that takes orders to a small vocal minority that has no concept in pure democracy. And I don’t (*bleeping) care if you clowns on this thread have the sudden audacity to slander me or anyone, who bash journalists in the namesake of morality and ethics. If FOX news can be slammed by critics for the lack of better coverage, then it should withhold the same critical standards to both the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the local news media outlets like radio and TV stations that has a problem, a serious one, to lie constantly in a straight face and not reporting on the REAL facts.

Lambert’s piece.

Wow. That Lambert piece …

This is going to be interesting. I’m keeping that perp walk Par bobblehead LOLZ gif on hand for when I need it again.

Sounds like he took it out of his personnel file, not to hide it, not to say “what agreement?” or “no, it didn’t say THAT”, but because removal would be one piece of evidence that it had been waived for him. Combine that with his testimony of waiver, and he’s close. Find a witness, or get a PP admission about that conversation, and he’s home.

In any case, enforcement of noncompetes is a tough thing to get courts to do, and they usually insist that every single i is crossed and t dotted before they’ll consider them, because they so drastically constrain someone’s right to work. If Par makes even a half-n-half case that there was a waiver (or, maybe even that his conversation led him to reasonably think there was a waiver), he may be safe. I’d not count him out on that yet, at all. Plus, if he truly signed the NC two weeks after he was hired, it may be out. If you hire someone, but then, two weeks later say “oh, you need to sign this”, you have problems, because the original contract didn’t include that term, so, if you want to make a new contract involving the NC, you can, but contracts have two sides, so you have to trade something for the new contract.

And, the data admission was no big thing, at least based on what info the paper ran. Yeah, he took it. Yeah, it was on the laptop. But, did the Strib USE IT in any fashion? If not, no harm, no foul, really. If this article said they used it, I missed it somehow.

And, will advertisers hate the Strib? Had they used the rate info, they could then undercut PP rates, which is the only real use of such data to someone else. Net effect to advertisers: cheaper ad rates. Oh, yeah, they’ll be up in arms.

Oh, and I’m guessing the Strib won’t be putting extra mail openers on duty to handle the flood of mail from people outraged at such conduct. First, I saw little (nothing, to be more precise) that makes the Strib itself sound bad, plus, NO ONE ELSE CARES, GUYS! People here tend to be a bit mediapomorphic, (note the polite understatement). but real world (non-media) people have tuned this story out long ago. So, letters will come from you guys, your friends and business acquaintances, and people who hate the Strib passionately and will revel in any Strib-mud they can find.

“Wow. That Lambert piece …“

Lambert got one major point right:

“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 then he keeps on writing. And, damn, he was so close, too:

“But it is almost impossible to see how Ridder skates on this one.“

Lacking any real expertise in chemistry or physics or math, or, ya’ know, non-humanities subjects, I know I’m no expert, but it is almost impossible to see how anyone can claim the earth revolves around the sun.

Ridder may well sink, but the factors cited by this lambert person are just . . . not factors.

bobby, thanks for the succinct discussion of what is right vs. what a lawyer can help you get away with.

Another non-lawyer weighs in: I understand the part about how you have to get something of value if you sign a non-compete after your employment begins.

But every non-compete I’ve ever heard of pays the person in question for the non-compete period. Usually, for high-level execs or people like TV anchors, it means they sit out a year with pay.

Wouldn’t that count as receiving something of value? I call a year’s pay value.

thanks, bobby_b, as usual I respect your lawyerly expertise

but as a non-lawyer, I’d STILL have to go to my basement workshop, get the glitter and hot glue gun out and make Par a world’s dumbest client plaque
didn’t some of his actions strike anyone else as rather stupid?

Ex-Stribber, that’s not normally how non-competes work in TV. Usually the new employer pays the person to sit for a year, a la KARE and Julie Nelson. She had a non-compete with KSTP. KARE paid her.

Often non-competes are thrown out because of exactly what Bobby B said: nothing of value was exchanged, making it an invalid contract. Or the non-compete overreaches. 3 months is reasonable. 6 months is iffy. 1 year is usually unreasonable.

TV people don’t typically challenge the non-competes, as it’s career suicide.

Strictly legally speaking, there’s plenty of chances for Par to get out of this, as Bobby_B has indicated. But even my lawyer wife exclaimed this morning when reading the Strib’s coverage this morning, “It’s like he was trying to be stupid by being stupid to prove he’s stupid.”

If his pa wasn’t in charge, he would be gone by now.

Boy not done good, but Ridder name must be protected.

BTW, due to vast difference in circulation, “undercutting” the PP rates wasn’t the end game.

Adjusting accordingly for their (Strib) St Paul circ or their overall CPM was.

Chris Harte has to take the heat for this one.

Is “I don’t recall” and “I didn’t read the documents” really an ironclad defense? Criminy.

Would Par be gainfully employed by anyone if he wasn’t a Ridder? Right now he’s coming off as the biggest f-ing buffoon.

Is “I don’t recall” and “I didn’t read the documents” really an ironclad defense?

it’s good enough for the justice department!

I have to step in here and say “woah woah woah” about the dissage of Scandia. It’s good!

What if they gave Par a nice Star Tribune pen or can coozy? Wouldn’t those be things of value?

Se”PAR”ated at birth?

Ha! You can drive my car any time, Toonces.

“It’s like he was trying to be stupid by being stupid to prove he’s stupid.”

I don’t think anyone has or can say it better.

What happened here is unprecedented, Singleton said of Ridders actions. Its never happened before in newspapering. And its wrong. Its just wrong.

Read more here.

Nothing like inbreeding, nepotism and a bad nosejob to keep the affluent rich.

I would like to say to all of the Stribbers (and PiPress people too) who wandered over to my blog, “Hello! It was all just done in fun. We kid. Thanks for stopping by!”