On Thursday, July 6, 2006… former Santa Barbara News-Press editor Jerry Roberts was escorted out of the News-Press building, escalating a saga which rocked the Santa Barbara community. Following Roberts out the door that fateful day were Metro Editor Jane Hulse, Business Editor Michael Todd, and Barney Brantingham.
In the following weeks, more than 70 Santa Barbara News-Press employees, one-third of the paper’s staff, either quit or were fired. Thousands canceled their subscriptions and the community turned to digital media for news and information.
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It’s hard to believe it has been six years. I was hoping Wendy McCaw would get tired of being a curmudgeon and leave by now. She has really hurt the community.
The NewsPress has become a wonderful local news paper since they cleaned it up 6 years ago. Great local resource without the snarky bias that even their news stories did not escape, let alone their former feature columnists who were increasingly out of touch with the NewsPress readership.
Take a look a the NewsPress Scene section today – highly readable, full of excellent local coverage, easy to access and a keeper to go back to all week long. Kudos and thanks to Wendy McCaw for stepping in at that hour of need. We loyal readers do appreciate your courage during the resultant meltdown by the few that blocked your improvements in the NewsPress for the many. You are the Local Hero, Wendy McCaw.
I never understood the sense of entitlement those former disgruntled staffers had. Nor the venom with which they continue their smug attacks against the NewsPress even today. Their reign of pomposity has now been long over. It was never their newspaper to run. And their alleged impresario Sarah Miller McCune never stepped up to buy the NewsPress like she promised.
The success of Noozhawk in addition to the new NewsPress proved there was a wide audience for a new approach to local journalism than the former insular and self-satisfied minority journalistic views now relegated to the languishing Independent, which is anything but independent.
Moral of the story: those who cling to a sense of nanny-state entitlements really resent having them taken away. And will burn down anything that got in the way between their sense of entitlement to other people’s money, and their own grandious sense of being the center of the known universe.
We love the NewsPress.
I agree with TinTin… good local paper that understands our local area. Changes were made and The News Press is a better paper and we are better served because of those changes
Tin Tin and Bob are obvious plants, or Wendy and Nipper. The News-Press is the worst newspaper I have seen in 40 years of working in journalism. It misses stories, editorializes on the front page, distorts the truth for its own politcal bent, is badly written, poorly laid out and in general is a disgrace to the community. It still runs more wire copy than local material. Scene? What a joke!!! It has very little local content. Readership continues to fall year after year.
Get real Tin Tin and Bob. The N-P is fantasy.
I finally understand why mc can only offer up poorly structured ad hominem attacks…He works as a local “journalist” which is about one notch above the fig tree crowd. It all makes so much sense now…
I think the NewsPress is a lot better than it used to be. The Sound just closed the Montecito Messenger, went online only, and can’t seem to publish more than one story a day. Independent has been biased, and online comments are just echo chamber of David Pritchett, Volok, McDermott just snarking the same talking points over and over: conservative = bad, anchor-babies = gangs, homeless = cute pets, public peeing = our impoverished people on display, sock it to the rich, pot = organic, developers bad, high density affordable housing mandates for all, etc.
My benchmark: If Marty Blum hates it, I like it.
I love Wendy McCaw and the new-and-improved News-Press!
The News-Press is an embarrassment to our community. It’s a good thing we have these online resources that at least make up for the journalistically inferior newspaper so devoid of institutional knowledge–and a left wing screed that truly shows no independence, despite its name. A third way might have been viable in the Daily Sound, but that would have required a change in ownership and a big commitment to professional staffing. Too bad Ms. Miller McCune didn’t make good on her challenge to the News Press by investing in it and really taking Wendy on. But that’s over now, too. Thanks to Santa Barbara View, Noozhawk for utilizing experienced journalists and encouraging intelligent discourse, and, of course, edhat, each filling a unique niche to help keep citizens informed and aware in admittedly different ways than we’ve known in the past.
edhat may have once kept people informed, but as we saw with the fires on 101 near Fairview last week, they have obviously lost their mission statement It was nearly an hour before even one post was made regarding these potentially devastating fires. While posts were being deleted left and right for “snark”, a simple check of the CHP site had the details of this newsworthy event. Edhat has become the epitome of everything that is wrong with Santa Barbara, a bunch of busybody nannies peering through their drapes at the neighbor’s hedges as the town falls apart around them.
Now instead of fire coverage EdHat offers posts like the one where someone posted pictures of their neighbor’s house and car and accused them of drunk driving.
Ms McCune could have started her own paper with the money she said she was willing to spend buying Wendy’s. Why didn’t she? Maybe she ran the numbers and realized she had nothing to offer that anyone was willing to buy in this town.
She is a smart lady. She knows the publishing world. She could have gathered these wounded former unionized N-P writers into her ample tent and sent them forth in direct competition for the hearts and minds of SB newspaper readers.
But she didn’t. And there in hangs the tale.
So how are those contract talks going between News-Press management and the Teamsters? Newsroom staffers voted 33-6 back in 2006 for union representation and collective bargaining.
They must be going well because nothing has happened since 2006.
I’m no fan of the News-Press. It was a mediocre paper at best six years ago and, yes, it’s gotten worse. But for the love of god, do we need to memorialize this so-called “meltdown” every July?
Let it go, move on, don’t buy it.
The anti-NewsPress comments here prove what a good decision it was to let those people go. Talk about lack of journalistic ethics – relentless attacks, aspersions without foundation, vitriol, bias and poor writing executed with emotional blinders. More energy hating Wendy McCaw in that group of aging, disgruntled ex-employees than 10000 cans of Red Bull.
Every time they rant or when I see another Boycott the NewsPress bumper sticker of hear some pompous fool say “I never read the NewsPress” I think, how sadly retro. Move on, okay. We heard you and over time we now realize Wendy was right and we appreciate her courage and commitment.
I have always wondered what it felt like when they pulled the duct tape off their upper lips.
The NewsPress fails in the “journalistic ethics” category and did so long before the “meltdown”. PR a perfect example and I could give you a list is the Editorial Page which over the years has castigated the Coastal Commission without mentioning the fact the publisher has engaged in legal battles with them. In ethical terms that would be called full disclosure which any professional news organization adheres to the News Press doesn’t as a matter of record. I would be happy to show more examples but doubt you really want to see more examples you can’t refute.
I do think that many of those outraged with the paper are more upset it doesn’t mirror their worldview fact is both the Independent and News Press are papers with strong biases and ethical shortcomings but the average news consumer in Santa Barbara is unsophisticated and biased themselves so they will both do just fine.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz …………..
When does the next Peter Lance series begin?
What is amazing about the whole NewsPress thing is Travis Armstrong was ultimately found to more right than wrong. He tried to tell us what was going on at City Council and Board of Supervisors back then, which we learned later was true.
They were being run by feel-good, fiscal incompetents which for some reason started calling themselves social progressives. Doesn’t feel so good now that we have to clean up all the progressive messes that pack left behind. Viva la Fourth Estate. If you are listening Travis, we get it now. Better late than never. It would be great to have him back, mucking things up again without fear or favor.
Tin Tin and Bob are definitely plants. I’ve never heard anyone in person say that they like the News Press after the staff walked out.
Wendy should have just started her own paper, instead of stealing the town’s. I know, it was her own money and she can do what she likes with it. After all, this is America, where corporations are people, too.
Once again. My benchmark: If Marty Blum hates it, I love it. I love Wendy McCaw and the new-and-improved Santa Barbara News-Press.
What Travis Armstrong proved was that being “right” is meaningless if your writing is filled with ad hominem attacks. His was and became unreadable except for those willing to immerse in corrosive bile.
Too bad “NewsPress Plants” isn’t reading the NewsPress this morning because there is quite a germane article about Capgras Syndrome right there on page two. Maybe NPP can glance at it at the Library if it happens to be spread out to that page on a library table somewhere.
The Wendy McCaw Derangement Syndrome remains alive and well among the few and the verbally mighty in this town. NPP needs to extend his/her circle of acquaintances in this town if it presently only includes the small, but merry band of NewsPress haters who continue to diet only on corrosive bile themselves.
Long live the new NewsPress. We are lucky to have this good morning daily paper in our town. There is no better way to start the day and plan the week than with the vastly improved Scene weekly events magazine each Friday. Thank you NewsPress advertisers. We go out of our way to support you too. Local is as local does.
Are we not reading the Newspress website right now?
Can someone explain how Wendy Derangement Syndrome can conclude spending millions of your own dollars to buy a newspaper legitimately up for sale is called “stealing”?
And the former NP union writers keep asking for proof of liberal bias in their writing? I suppose asking them to hold a mirror up to their own faces might be considered a snarky response.
Wow! I’m learning new things today from the people who like and support the News-Press. Capgras Syndrome. Derangement Syndrome. How interesting.
What are Capgras Syndrome and Derangement Syndrome? These are new terms to me.
Take the six disgruntled former NP union staffers times three posts each and you have at least 18 complaints about Wendy’s NP. The power of compounding.
Journalistic ethics according to the Duct Tape Crowd required NewsPress owner Wendy McCaw to hire and pay writers on her dime and then give them total carte blanche at her expense to write whatever they wanted, and could even write articles that portrayed her, the boss and owner, negatively and maliciously.
Somewhere there is an out of touch journalism school teaching that is ethical conduct. Somewhere these people never even learned good manners. I suspect those writers misread their ethics coursework because those would be utopian ethics where one lives to spend other people’s money; not the real world of contemporary journalism.
Ergo, you can imagine the type of writing that came out of those with such a deluded sense of “journalistic ethics” and entitlement. Heart-breaking to know they still have not figured out the nanny-state does not exist to spend other people’s money for their use and enjoyment.
The Duct Tape Crowd of union thugs went out of their way to irritate and malign their boss. And they remain shocked, yes shocked when this all came back to bite them. So they continue to bleat we was robbed. No, I would not want anyone with those ethics to be working for me either. I wonder who would.
6 years is going to bed for over two-thousand nights still believing in the tooth fairy. No, those are not writers I would want to read.
Well, this is certainly the McCaw spin on things, Y, but not really anything to do with journalism. The exodus of good reporters, writers, editors and freelance contributors started almost immediately when she bought the paper and showed complete and total ignorance of anything to do with journalism. Remember how there used to be a separation between editorial and advertising, and experienced, knowledgeable beat reporters who would sit at City Hall, the County, the Police Dept, or the School District for hours, and actually report on what happened there? Instead of running an excerpt from a press release, staff report, or getting things completely wrong like the cute little interns do all the time. This city deserves a professional publication with professionals running the business from the top down and the bottom up. We don’t have it, and it’s not on the horizon. The pros are sick of working for free, and all the volunteer “citizen journalists” are doing their best, but it’s not enough to dig into the real stuff that’s going on around here without any scrutiny at all.
EditHer, remember when everything was free and unicorns and rainbows greeted our newsboys delivering morning papers from their Huffy bikes while mom in her apron was waiting with platters or hot scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes before Johnny walked to school after his morning rounds?
News boys delivering on their “American made Huffy” bikes, Rainbows and unicorns. Ahhh the good memories of giving the boy a tip for a
“Job well Done” When he came to the door to collect the monthly payment. The responsibility and work he did were good for him and our community!
So how did it get to drivers rushing around in cars and polluting the environment, those who had a limited time to deliver about 200 papers .Seems we knew one who did that. Recall he said he had to be there and roll and them prior to delivery. He was a young man with 3 little children and 2 other part time jobs.
Think it may have changed because the afternoon paper became a Morning Paper. Hard to remember. Anyone have any memories to share.?
If you believe in separation between news and advertising then you’re living in dreamland. Indy Nick Welsh has been editorial/news, er… news/editorial, er… whatever, since he spit out his first Indy column. And I suppose politicians do what’s in all our best interest? And CNN is fair and balanced? And Fox News is fair and balanced? C’mon, everyone, everywhere has their own spin. What Wendy has done to the News-Press has been a vast improvement over what we had prior. The self-important, entitled crowd that follows Blum and her gang of sycophants need to get over themselves.
Didn’t most of the people who quit or got fired worked for the paper before it was purchased by Wendy McCaw? Does that mean that the New York Times — the former owner — knowingly hired union thugs? Yowza!
If the dismissed leftie writers at the NewsPress were so good, they would have been snatched up by the industry in a second, instead of still lying about 6 years later whining they was robbed.
Too bad these unemployed former NewsPress union employees did not get a course in Principles of the Free Market, along with their course in Journalism “Ethics”. Their professional education prepared them for nothing.
Just for fun i stopped by http://www.linkedin.com. Lots of familiar names from the old News-Press.
Why did those former writers feel they owned the NewsPress and had an entitlement to their positions there? What school of journalism taught them that.
Name names – which school of journalism teaches this sort of professional employee entitlement and attachment rights to someone else’s private property and the ability to trump the owner’s own First Amendment rights to publish anything the way she wants?
The free market voted: the NewsPress won and are still publishing to the benefit of their relieved and appreciative readers. And the fired writers are still grousing. Okay, got it.
I guess we could be grateful that she didn’t buy a bank.
Message to former NewsPress staffers:
1. It is not your newspaper.
2. We are glad you are gone.
Not their paper, true, but hard to say that the NewsPress “won” when one day not too far away many of those former staffers will be collecting big bucks from McCaw. The NLRB has consistently ruled in their favor.
What do you expect from the union lackie NLRB, particularly stacked with Obama union cronies. But the US Supreme Court has the final say.
Never saw this site before but it is interesting. That you guys are talking about the News-Press and Travis Armstrong (who I know) after all these years says something about his importance to the Santa Barbara community. He was sort of the last great well-known journalist in Santa Barbara. I guess that partly is the sign of the changes in the media landscape. We once had a great opinion writer celebrity. I sort of long for the old days. I picked up the paper and looked for what he said, then talked about it at work. The Board of Supervisors and City Council spot cold when he talked. Then he stepped out of it all.
The News Press is great if you want front page stories about poodles and donkeys. I finally decided to give it up when they published a “news” story about a home invasion on my block- FOUR FREEKIN DAYS after it happened. That ain’t news , that is “olds”.