Carleton Free Press

The Carleton Free Press is a defunct Canadian weekly newspaper that published twice a week in , New Brunswick.

It covered Carleton County and the upper Saint John River valley and was owned by local entrepreneur Dwight Fraser and its publisher was Ken Langdon.

The first weekly edition was released on October 31, 2007 and it last edition was released on October 28, 2008.

The paper was available free of charge until December 31, 2007. The price of its final edition was $1.25 per issue.

The paper ceased publication allegedly due to 'unfair competition' by its competitor Brunswick News publication the Bugle-Observer which was selling at $.25 an issue through the use of coupons.

One of the co-owners of the Carleton Free Press and its publisher, Ken Langdon, was a former publisher of the competing Bugle-Observer.

Langdon's departure from his position at the Bugle-Observer was the focus of a controversial court action by his former employer Brunswick News which has accused him of holding information that might unfairly benefit the Carleton Free Press.

The battle over the Carleton Free Press started on September 27, 2007, when a team of four forensic accountants hired by CanadaEast News Inc., a media holding company owned by industrial conglomerate J.D. Irving Limited, barged into Langdon's home in Woodstock with a search warrant.

The search by the forensic accountants was authorized under a rarely used power of the civil courts relating to industrial espionage, commonly called an Anton Piller order, coupled with an injunction. "They even rooted through my wife's lingerie drawer," Langdon said.

Days before the search, citing a poor relationship with his immediate supervisor, Langdon had resigned his post after four years as publisher of the Bugle-Observer, a paper owned by Brunswick News. In his resignation letter, Langdon expressed his intent to start a new paper.

"During my last weeks in the employ of the Irvings, I consulted with a lawyer who advised me that I had grounds for a constructive dismissal suit," wrote Langdon in the Carleton Free Press' first editorial. "Subsequently I sent to my home files that I could use as part of that suit."

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Wikipedia