Editor and Publisher Magazine: Activists Won’t Go Away In Morris Bankruptcy

By Mark Fitzgerald

Morris Publishing Group is supposed to emerge from its brief stay in Chapter 11 protection next Wednesday -- but two gadflies from St. Augustine, Fla., remain determined to derail the prepackaged reorganization.

“This is not just about dollars and cents. This is about our community here, and we’re not being served well by the St. Augustine Record,” Ed Slavin told Fitz & Jen late Friday. As we’ve reported, Slavin along with Judith Seraphin tried to get intervener status in the Morris bankruptcy, arguing that under Morris family ownership the quality of the chain’s newspapers has deteriorated to the point they no longer serve as the public’s eyes and ears on corruption and malfeasance.

Thursday, Judge John S. Dalis, who is presiding over the Morris case from U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the company’s hometown of Augusta, Ga., rejected their attempt. He ruled they had no standing to object to the Morris plan, which has the blessing of its principal creditors. They are not creditors, the judge said, and they haven’t asserted some reason they should be allowed to intervene.

So Friday, the pair were at it again, filing a motion to reconsider the denial.

“The court has a mandatory duty to protect the public interest in every bankruptcy, but nowhere more when newspapers protected by our First Amendment, are in decline and being run into the ground by the Debtors,” their motion states, referring to Morris.

A lot’s at stake in this particular BK, the motion asserts: “Our Constitution is in shreds if Debtors are permitted to escape from their debts and to change nothing and to do nothing to improve the quality of the newspaper in our Nation’s Oldest City.”

Seraphin is CEO of Global Wrap, which wraps buildings, mostly during construction, and Slavin is the company's CIO. Slavin blogs at Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida.