It’s over. After 15 years, the (last) great print newspaper war has ended and the winner is, the internet? In case you missed our earlier coverage, the Phoenix New Times‘ parent company, Village Voice Media, has finally settled a crazy-ugly lawsuit in San Francisco that ended with this Phoenix-based media company being slapped with a $21 million fine!

Although terms of for the settlement between the Bay Guardian and the New Times‘ sister publication, SF Weekly, “both publications issued statements saying the two sides ‘have settled their differences on mutually acceptable terms,’” says a write up in yet another area newspaper, the SF Chronicle.

Confused? Here’s the story in a nutshell. In 1995, the New Times‘ parent company purchased the SF Weekly, and then started selling ads super-cheaply in an effort to siphon advertisers away from the paper’s creaky rival, the Bay Guardian. In 2008, Village Voice Media was found guilty of “predatory pricing” under California’s sweeping antitrust laws and slapped with $16.2M in penalties and damages awards, which including interest fees, had ballooned to more than $21M before the two publications finally settled.

But much more interesting is how this longstanding battle pitted two old-school print dinosaurs against each other: New Times editor/co-owner, Michael Lacey vs. Bruce B. Brugmann, co-owner of the Bay Guardian. Click here to read a great write-up by the Seattle-based weekly, The Stranger. Our fav part, when one of Lacey’s minions expressed his desire to strangle Brugman’s minion with his ponytail. Now that’s old-school journalism.

No wait, we take it all back. Our fav part is that these two typesetting Tyrannosaurs are fighting over a dying medium. In fact, just last year internet advertising passed print advertising for the first time ever. Meanwhile, while advertising nationwide was up 9 percent last quarter, newspaper advertising has been in decline for five straight years.

Good thing for our few remaining pals in the print biz that stoners still like to smoke read papers.

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