Perhaps one reason why the Niagara Gazette is teetering on the brink of financial ruin is its extensive use of high-priced attorneys, who do everything from representing the paper in its various libel suits to fighting tooth-and-nail against employees attempting to collect unemployment benefits or claim Workman's Compensation.
This costs a lot of money, but rarely is it as comical as the Gazette's protracted legal struggle against 29th Street resident James Jones.
The story began more than three years ago, in the spring of 2000, when Jones registered the domain name niagaragazette.com on the World Wide Web. At the time, the Gazette was a long way from setting up its own Web site, despite the fact that the Buffalo News, the Niagara Falls Reporter and just about every other newspaper in the civilized world was offering readers electronic editions.
A computer expert, Jones was frustrated by the mishandling of advertisements he attempted to place in the Gazette. His Web site, entitled "The Incompetent Niagara Gazette," detailed those travails.
"I put it up because every time I put an ad in the paper, it was wrong or misspelled," he said. "I was told they couldn't help it, that my ads were screwed up down in Tonawanda. I was so pissed." Enter Patrick Berrigan, the Gazette's lead attorney. On May 19, 2000, he sent Jones an e-mail ordering him to "cease and desiste (sic) from further publications" on his Web site.
Fearing a lawsuit, Jones pulled the site down, but hung on to the domain name, paying the yearly registration fee. For three years, the Gazette's attorneys and business office representatives badgered him to turn the domain name over to them.
Jones told the Reporter he would have sold them the name for a price in the low three figures, but Gazette management preferred to employ its expensive legal eagles in an attempt to bully him into turning it over for free.
Most recently, on March 6 of this year, Berrigan wrote Jones a threatening letter. At the time, the Gazette was finally in the process of setting up its own Web site and needed the name but, rather than trying to negotiate, our "community newspaper" once again attempted to play hardball.
"We hereby make demand that you voluntarily transfer the domain name niagaragazette.com to the newspaper, thereby avoiding the need for costly litigation," Berrigan wrote. "In the event you refuse to transfer this domain name to the newspaper, we will be compelled to commence an action in the United States District Court against you."
For Jones it was the last straw.
"I thought, 'Let them sue me.'" Jones said. "I don't have anything anyway, and you can't get blood out of a stone."
He relaunched his Web site as a public forum on the Gazette's ineptitude, complete with a disclaimer disavowing any connection with the newspaper. Thus far, the site has attracted more than 500 visitors, many of whom have taken the time to share their own thoughts about just how bad the Gazette really is.
"They could have just had it, but they wanted to start a fight with me," Jones said. "It really didn't make any sense at all."
As for Berrigan, Jones hasn't heard from him since March. Ultimately, the Gazette did launch its own Web site, using an unwieldy domain name so as not to infringe on the one Jones legally registered.
Unlike the Web sites posted by the Buffalo News and the Niagara Falls Reporter, the Gazette's electronic edition contains only a fraction of the stories carried in the print edition of the paper. Their "Guestbook" section, which invites readers to comment on the site, hasn't had a new entry since the middle of April.
In the end, the Gazette spent three years and who knows how much in attorney's fees in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain something they could have got for the price of a night on the town.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 8 2003 |