Hobbs wraps up testimony

BY ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Former News-Press reporter Dawn Hobbs remained on the witness stand throughout the day as defense attorney Barry Cappello conducted his cross examination yesterday, a process that took nearly six hours.
Federal and union attorneys are charging the Santa Barbara News-Press with illegally firing Hobbs for her key involvement in the unionization of the News-Press newsroom. Defense attorneys argue that management terminated Hobbs due to disloyalty.

Before yesterday’s hearing got underway, however, Judge William Kocol hinted at what figures to be a determining factor for many of the issues at hand in the case, which involves 15 separate charges against the newspaper for unfair labor practices.
On Friday, Cappello submitted a brief arguing that protests and demands related to journalistic ethics are not protected by labor law. Judge Kocol asked National Labor Relations Board Attorney Steve Wyllie for his side of the argument.
“It seems to me as I sit here now, this is a very important matter in this case,” Judge Kocol said.
He said the issue of where the line is drawn on protected activity will decide many of the issues in the case. Wyllie told the judge that he is still preparing his response and will certainly be arguing that those activities are protected under the National Labor Relations Act.
A key request by the unionizing employees — essentially the stimulus for their attempt to unionize — is for a restoration of the separation between the editorial page and news section of the News-Press. Protests and demonstrations, including one on the Anapamu footbridge that resulted in the firing of six reporters, have focused largely on that ethical issue.
As Hobbs took the stand, Cappello began by questioning her on e-mails she turned over to the defense in response to a subpoena. Cappello focused her attention on an August 24 attempt by newsroom employees to deliver a letter to News-Press owner and copublisher Wendy McCaw.
Hobbs testified on Friday that she had gone back through her e-mail account and found a few messages that she had missed, which had been turned over that morning to the defense. Cappello questioned Hobbs about her ability to track down documents for a news story, suggesting that her extensive knowledge in that area should have prevented her from missing any e-mails.
“You are computer literate, are you not?” Cappello asked.
Hobbs explained that her search function on her computer is “excruciatingly slow” and that she went through her e-mails in chronological order, looking for any that were responsive to the subpoena. She testified that she did not have any other e-mails related to the letter delivery attempt.
Cappello then brought forward another e-mail dated after the attempted letter delivery from former reporter Tom Schultz. In the message, Schultz said he had hearing loss from the “sonic boom through the newsroom on our way to Wendy's office,” adding, “I must have banged that sauce pan too close to my head right before jackhammering our demands into the floor.”
Hobbs testified that she did not remember seeing that e-mail before, but said she thought he was being “very figurative” in that message.
Cappello then focused Hobbs on the story she wrote about editorial page editor Travis Armstrong’s DUI arrest, asking if she pushed for that story to appear on the front page because of a personal animus against Armstrong. Hobbs denied requesting the story to appear on the front page or that she hated Armstrong.
Hobbs also testified that then-editor Jerry Roberts told her “they” decided not to run a story she wrote about Armstrong’s sentencing, which she inferred to mean McCaw and copublisher Arthur von Weisenberger.
Questioning then shifted to the charge that News-Press management intentionally lowered the performance evaluations of Hobbs and other newsroom employees for their union involvement in 2006. Associate editor Scott Steepleton testified earlier that he lowered Hobbs’ evaluation because she directed invectives at Armstrong and was “cozy with the cops.”
Cappello argued that because Armstrong e-mailed the human resources department about the “cussing incident” in August, he could not have been targeting Hobbs for her union activity because the union was still in its “infancy.” Wyllie rebutted that Hobbs had been very active in the campaign by then and Armstrong’s e-mail is no indication or proof she wasn’t targeted.
Hobbs admitted under questioning by Cappello that the issue over her relationship with law enforcement had been discussed in earlier performance reviews, contradicting her earlier testimony that it hadn’t been an issue before Steepleton brought it up. However, Hobbs explained that the sections of those evaluations highlighted by Cappello had been taken out of context and that the issue had never been serious.
Cappello then switched gears to question Hobbs about the request by unionizing employees to restore a wall between opinion and news sections. Hobbs said she discussed that separation in “Journalism 101” and journalism ethics courses.
Cappello described that concept as a “fictitious wall in the heads of these newsroom employees,” asking Hobbs to point out a section of the Society of Professional Journalist’s Code of Ethics relating to that separation. Hobbs said that code of ethics related to reporters and therefore did not have specific language about management of a newspaper.
Hobbs said Armstrong’s stint as both editorial page editor and acting publisher of the newspaper — following Roberts’ resignation while McCaw and von Weisenberger were on vacation — is a breech of that divide.
“That is what caused us to seek a union,” she testified later.
Under redirect examination by Wyllie and union attorney Ira Gottlieb, Hobbs further explained how she felt the violation of that separation affected her individual integrity.
“As a professional journalist, I gather news and I write my stories without interference,” Hobbs said. “When you start having interference from the outside, it’s a very slippery slope.”
As Cappello continued his cross examination, he questioned Hobbs on the subscription cancellation campaign and attempts to get businesses to stop advertising in the News-Press. Hobbs described how the unionizing employees requested that the management recognize or engage with their bargaining unit or they would start a campaign to get people to cancel their News-Press subscriptions.
Hobbs also testified that she knew incoming revenue at the News-Press would suffer as a result of those campaigns, adding that she believed that to be a legally protected method of encouraging negotiation.
Cappello announced to Judge Kocol that he will submit a brief arguing that economic boycott in order to force negotiation is not a protected activity under the National Labor Relations Act.
Cappello also questioned Hobbs on whether she had been warned not to attach banners or signs to the Anapamu footbridge during the February 2 demonstration. Hobbs said she had contacted the Santa Barbara Police Department the night prior and learned that attaching signs would be a municipal code violation.
Cappello produced a photograph taken on the bridge that day. Hobbs could not say for sure, due to the blurriness of the image, whether it showed the banner in question, much less if it had been attached to the fencing.
“As far as I’m aware, we did not affix the signs on the bridge,” Hobbs testified.
The hearing will continue today at 9 a.m. at the Bankruptcy Court building on State Street. Slated to testify are Starshine Roshell, Melissa Evans and Karna Hughes.