2 of 4

New paper in Simi Valley

A new paper joined the Acorn family of

newspapers when the Simi Valley Acorn

was published for the first time March 5.

The weekly tab comes out on Fridays,

with 27,000 copies mailed free to local

homes and businesses or dropped off at

other distribution points. Publisher Jim

Rule bought

The Acorn

, Agoura Hills, in

1996. He launched the

Thousand Oaks

Acorn

in 1998 and the

Moorpark Acorn

last September. John Loesing, the editor

of the Thousand Oaks paper, also edits

the new publication.

CNAEA

North to meet

California Newspaper Advertising

Executives Association North will hold

“New Business Development Night”

Wednesday, April 14, at the Embassy

Suites, 1345 Treat Blvd. in Walnut

Creek. Panel topics include real estate,

coop/retail, custom printing and automo

-

tive. Cost is $45 for members, $55 for

non-members. Reservations: Linda

Black,

Marin Independent Journal

:

(415) 382-7367; [email-masked].

Former Sun publisher

heads Gannett division

S. Mark Adkins has been named vice

president/advertising for the Gannett

Newspaper Division. The president and

publisher of

The Sun

, San Bernardino,

when it was a Gannett publication in

1997, he later became an ad executive

for The Honolulu Advertiser. Adkins has

been with Gannett since 1983.

L.A. Times ad insert

delivery service grows

The

Los Angeles Times

’ “Local

Community Values” preprint advertising

and product sample distribution program

added a million homes to its distribution

area last week and now reportedly

allows advertisers to target roughly 4.6

million Times subscriber and

non-subscriber households in Southern

California, including a larger swath of the

fast-growing Riverside and San

Bernardino counties. Local Community

Values integrates Times newspaper

inserts, U.S. mail and alternative delivery

methods to target clusters of ZIP codes,

or individual sub-ZIP code areas.

CNPA Online:

http://www.cnpa.com/

CNPA B

ULLETIN

Page 54

April 5, 2004

Briefly ...

Jack Bates

Executive Director

Brian Taylor

Editor

Diane Donohue

Associate Editor

1225 8th St., Suite 260, Sacramento, Calif. 95814-4879; (916) 288-6000

T

HE

CNPA M

ISSION

To champion the ideals of a free press in our democratic society

and to promote the quality and economic health of California newspapers

CNPA BULLETIN

Published weekly by the

California Newspaper

Publishers Association

http://www.cnpa.com/

The Associated Press has opted to

assign the lease on the CNPA Services

building, at 10th and G streets in

Sacramento, to Prentiss Properties

Natomas LP as of March 20. The

assignment was made in accordance with

the original lease provisions, and the only

change for CNPA Services will be the

name on the monthly check.

AP has entered into a lease for space

elsewhere in Sacramento that better serves

its current needs. It will vacate the

Services building sometime in the next

few months. It appears unlikely that a new

tenant will be attracted to the space prior

to the expiration of the lease, which is on

Oct. 6, 2007. As the end of the lease

nears, the Services board of directors will

have to decide on the use or disposition of

the building.

Lease on CNPA

Services building assigned

Unpublished court decisions an issue

uOn April 30, the state Assembly’s

Judiciary Committee has tentatively

scheduled a hearing on a bill by state Sen.

Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, to ban

no-citation rules in state appellate courts.

Eighty-five percent of the decisions in

the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the

court that holds sway in California, are

unpublished, according to Schmier; so are

94 percent of state appellate decisions.

“Not being able to cite appellate court

decisions as precedent was unthinkable 30

years ago. Somehow or other it

established itself,” Schmier said last week.

“The fact that it happened was never

reported in the popular press.”

Unpublished decisions put newspapers

in jeopardy of inconsistent applications of

libel laws, Schmier warned. More broadly,

they limit public awareness of court

rulings.

“Newspapers used to pick up the deci

-

sions of the appellate courts that, because

they are published and citable, are law for

everyone, and put that decision out to the

general populace for discussion,” Schmier

noted. “It focuses debate in the communi

-

ty” and can lead to changes in the law.

There may not be much new under the

sun, as Ecclesiastes had it, but more and

more of our legal decisions are

unprecedented — and that’s a trend that

newspapers are partially responsible for.

That’s the belief, anyway, of attorney

Ken Schmier, an outspoken advocate for

stopping the expunction of legal precedent

from appellate courts in California and at

the federal level.

The issue hangs on a term of art. In the

law, published decisions by appeals courts

can be cited as precedents in other cases;

unpublished decisions cannot. Legal

precedents clarify the meaning of civil

and criminal codes, forming a framework

of case law around the statutes enacted by

state legislatures and the U.S. Congress.

Schmier chairs the Committee for the

Rule of Law, which maintains a Web site

with extensive background on the issue at

http://www.nonpublication.com/. He wants to

alert journalists to two hearings that may

help start to change the situation:

uOn April 13, the Federal Appellate

Rules Committee will meet in

Washington, D.C., on a proposal to bar

no-citation rules for all U.S. courts.