http://lists.topica.com/lists/aeb_humboldt/read/message.html?mid=1713024387
Re: PL Foray Against Press a Bad Move Times Standard Editorial
5/16/03
Michael Shellenberger
May 16, 2003 12:12 PDT
This is AMAZING. I want to encourage folks to write letters to Charles
Winkler directly, thanking him for this editorial -- and asking them to do
as critical coverage of PL's allegedly fraudulent business practices. It
will go a long way.
M
Michael Twombly wrote,
Eureka Times-Standard
PL foray against press a bad move
Friday, May 16, 2003 -
Its recent image has never been better than ragged. Certainly not since
Maxxam became Pacific Lumber's owner years ago and engaged in logging
practices that rallied everyone from tree huggers to responsible
environmentalists -- to just a whole lot of middle-of-the-road folks --
to take steps both legal and questionable to get the company to toe the
line.
The reluctant corporate giant -- like so many other big businesses --
has in recent years taken some steps to make things better for this
earth we all live on and to resolve at least some matters in the courts.
After all, they want to harvest timber and make money. And a lot of
Humboldt County families depend on them for livelihood.
And there's not a thing wrong with cutting down a tree, if all the rules
are followed.
As PL tries to remove some forest protesters from its property so that
it can harvest trees the courts have said it has a right to harvest, a
new issue has arisen.
In what has to be one of the dumbest, most arrogant things the timber
giant has attempted in recent memory, its attorneys served the North
Coast Journal with a deposition subpoena, asking for reporter's notes,
unpublished photos and other information tied to a March 6 account of a
foray into the tree tops on Pacific Lumber land. PL has a civil lawsuit
against numerous activists, charging they are illegally interfering with
the company's business.
At this point, Pacific Lumber is going after only the Journal. Neither
the Times-Standard nor the Washington Post, both of which have trod on
PL land in search of the story, have been subject to this obvious
corporate bully tactic.
Journal owner Judy Hodgson said this week in her column she believes the
company either is ignorant of the law or is "trying to harass and
intimidate this newspaper."
That may or may not be the case. It certainly looks that way.
What is irrefutable is that Pacific Lumber appears to have gone out of
its way to shoot itself in the foot. It has no legal right to the
information it purports to seek. California has a shield law to protect
reporters and publications from just such absurd demands.
Even the tens of thousands of North Coast residents who are weary of the
small core of forest troublemakers have to wonder -- why would PL
provide fuel to those who believe that Maxxam doesn't care about
anything other than the almighty dollar?
The tree-sitters and PL are a story of national interest. It needs to be
told, as many publications attempt to do with some frequency. It could
be argued the Journal reporter left some of his objectivity on the
ground when he took to the trees, and that may have angered PL.
Should the reporter have gone into PL woods and done the story? Of
course. If it came out other than in a way pleasing to Pacific Lumber
officials, the best damage control would have been to do nothing.
Instead, it has put some more dings in its already battered corporate
image.
------------------------
Michael Shellenberger, President, Lumina Strategies,
www.luminastrategies.com, phone 510-525-9900, fax 510-288-1325, mobile
415-309-4200
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