He out-debated Hendrix, and got a timely bump from the Rosa Parks funeral.

The interesting question is -- how did the Freep get these records?

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...30003/0/NEWS05

Afterward, the Free Press asked the city for all records relating to the settlement, under the state Freedom of Information Act. The city provided a settlement agreement, but the paper sued the city for additional records it contended were related to the deal.

In addition, the Free Press sent a subpoena to Skytel's headquarters in Jackson, Miss., seeking the text records Stefani first tried to get in 2004.

The city went to court in an effort to kill the newspaper's subpoena. City attorney Ellen Ha, in an e-mail to Free Press attorney Herschel Fink, also tried to get the Free Press to promise that it would not "seek to obtain ... records by any other means" until the judge had made a ruling.

The Free Press refused.

In seeking the records, the Free Press explored numerous avenues, eventually obtaining the text messages independent of the subpoena.