"We, the journalists of the Star Tribune, call on Par Ridder to resign as publisher. We believe the unethical actions to which he admitted in court have damaged the Star Tribune's credibility and integrity and undermined our ability to hold public figures accountable for their actions. For the good of the Star Tribune and the community it serves, we believe he should step down."

It looks like I'm getting a letter tomorrow that asks me to step down. Yesterday the reporter's Guild voted 110 to 2 to ask me to resign. To be honest, it stings a little.

I don't think reporters know how tough it is to run a paper these days. News is just bad business. Try to put out a good product, no one will read it. People would rather read C.J. and the AP headlines than anything a reporter would spend expensive time on. And when you give people what they want to read, they still don't read it. How many more baseball writers could we frigging have and we still aren't getting 15%+ returns? And the reporters want me to quit because I was bringing over some forms to help out the business.

But whatever, like Avista has said, they run the show, not the labor line.

"The Guild does not get to decide who is publisher of the Star Tribune."

That's what Harte had to tell the Reporter's Guild yesterday. I think they forget that. Harte also reminded them of something else, this:

"Star Tribune Chairman Chris Harte said the newspaper's owner, Avista Capital Partners, has full confidence in Ridder."

The story that has those quotes also says the Guild represents about 300 reporters and other people who work at papers. We'll see how many it represents after tomorrow's vote and after Avista keeps me as the Publisher. The report even points out that I just took the spreadsheets from the Pioneer Press so I could remake them at the Star Tribune. It's because they're complex spreadsheets that would be hard to remake. But that's I guess not what the reporters want to think.

I See How It's Gonig to Be

You've probably heard by now that the writers guild voted to not vote on "no confidence". Nope. They're going to wait to vote that I should resign.

Fine. Go ahead. See what difference it will make.

Did you read Lambert today? Everyday with this guy. He said Singleton has spent 3 mill suing me. What a fucker. It's cost almost htat much for Avista, too. When my civil trial end, you can bet we're going to counter sue that bastard for every penny we lost. And we're going to get it back, too. You'll see. Avista isn't going to loose that kind of money. Not a private equity group. I'm going to show returns. Even if the Stewards don't want me to, all of them.

What a fiaso. In our meeting today I told Chris we I should have just let someone else from management take that damn information and had soeone else void the non-competes. Breach of ethics. This is business! I told Barrett that too tonight when we were out for drinkss. CEOs can't catch a break man. I'm telling you.

Yesterday Lambert wrote another attack piece on me. He thinks the Writer's Guild is going to have a vote of no confidence in me as publisher. Yeah right. Lambert must not read this blog. Avista, the people who own the paper that employs the Writer's Guild, have full confidence in me. Even though hacks with columns on the internet don't want the Star Tribune to make money, Avista does. That's why they hired me. So grow up, people. Let's get back to business. The President isn't going to get impeached and neither am I.

Oh, and speaking of business, what's this about Singleton wanting my head on a spike? I say we let the quarterly numbers do the talking. Unless Singleton can't stand that heat. There should be a vote of no confidence in Dean Singleton. He owns 57 papers and only comes to town to when it's time to sue someone. What a jerk. If he wants to step up, we'll see who's head goes on a spike.