A Bad Idea

23 February 2009 by The General Published in: General News 4 comments

It would appear, based on the following e-mail, that the reports of the death of North & South magazine are premature:

Wasn’t there some street fighting in Baton Rouge? THis is Keith (editor) I’ve just got back from China, where among other things I’ve been laying the )production) groundwork for a return of MILITARY CHRONICLES later this year. Email was very intermittent while I was there, so i have a huge backlog to deal with. I understand that some rumor has been circulating that North & South might be going under. Suffice to say the word of our demise has been greatly exaggerated. Next isue goes to the printer in 7-10 days. The economic climate is creating some difficulties, and may mean some slippage in schedule and/or the occasional issue reduced to 84 pages (I’m trying to avoid this). But the magazine is not going to disappear. (The problem is that advertisers have had their budgets slashed, and this will remain a problem for the next 6 months). Anyone who is waiting for an email response from me, please bear with me. Will get back to you asap.
Keith

I guess that’s a good thing, if the quality issues are resolved and a new cartographer has been located. At least my investment remains afloat for another issue. Beyond that, who knows?

I believe that the task of running this business is probably more than Mr. Poulter can capably handle. I think that his renewed attempts to start a second publication are a very bad idea, as I think it more important–not to mention his legal and fiduciary duty to the shareholders–to fix the problems with North & South before trying to launch Military Chronicles. That includes not diverting a single resource of N & S for use with the new publication, as doing so would breach that duty.

The lawyer in me seems to think that putting the interests of Military Chronicles ahead of those of North & South constitutes a misappropriation of corporate opportunity for his own use and benefit, and an actionable breach of fiduciary duty, and were I still counsel to the company, that’s what I would advise him.

However, I’m just the dumb lawyer who’s on the outs. What do I know?

Scridb filter

Comments

Paul Taylor

Mon 23rd Feb 2009 at 4:51 pm
Perhaps those of us who are still awaiting payment for long-ago published articles should now have renewed reason to expect a check, eh?

What say you, Mr. Poulter?
John Foskett

Mon 23rd Feb 2009 at 8:28 pm
I’m still doing the math on the “lifetime” subscriptions. If I recall, there’s a limit of 100, at $150 per. I believe that works out to $15,000. I also believe that I saw that number in another context in this discussion. Hmmm…
James Durney

Wed 25th Feb 2009 at 10:45 pm
My Round Table spent $99 for a 3-year sub and are about 2/5 of the way through it. We used the issues as a raffle fund raiser. It will hurt to lose that money.
Scott

Thu 05th Mar 2009 at 11:38 am
Premature: I guess that is why he has not yet sent me the standard complimentary copies of the last issue that contained my article on Crooked Run!