Late Friday afternoon, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard filed federal court papers to stop the shutdown of the Tucson Citizen. The Citizen, while the state’s oldest continually printed newspaper, had been ailing for years despite a special exemption to federal anti-trust laws that allowed it to share profits and expenses with its main local competition, the Arizona Daily Star.

The Citizen’s corporate owner, Gannett, had been operating the Citizen on a day-to-day basis while negotiating with potential buyers. But it didn’t make sense to any investors because Gannett refused to sell the Citizen’s web site or Gannett’s share of the newspaper joint operating agreement.

The Citizen announced just before 10 a.m. Friday that it was closing down the print edition the next day. But the situation had been apparent for months. So I have to wonder why Goddard’s office didn’t have an emergency motion ready to file immediately when Gannett made the closure official. Instead, Goddard’s filing came near the end of the business day, and he couldn’t get a judge to hear his request for a temporary restraining order until this afternoon.

(Here’s another question: How does Goddard serve as attorney general for more than six years and still not know a single judge that he can get to sign an emergency TRO on a Friday evening or Saturday morning?)

The Citizen’s death as a newspaper and transition to a commentary/opinion Web site might have been inevitable, but I have to agree with Goddard’s assertion that Gannett’s actions violate the intent of newspaper joint operating agreements and the underlying federal law that allows them. So it would be great if a federal judge forces Gannett to make an honest effort to sell the Citizen and its assets to someone who wants to keep it as a newspaper, instead of the shell game the company has played for the past few months.

UPDATE: U.S. District Judge Raner Collins said he will rule Tuesday on Goddard’s motion. But can Collins actually order the Citizen to start printing again (and somehow bring 50 employees back to work), or would he simply order Gannett to restart sale negotiations under a different set of conditions? Or maybe he’ll see Goddard’s move as too little, too late.

SECOND UPDATE: The judge did rule Tuesday as promised, and it was in Gannett’s favor. Apparently, the folks who wanted to buy what parts of the Citizen that Gannett was willing to sell just didn’t offer enough money to match the cost of liquidation, so no anti-trust violations occurred.