Santa Barbara News-Press meltdown
From Editor & Publisher, incredibly wealthy Santa Barbara News-Press owner Wendy McGraw has a revolt on her hands, after blurring the lines between news and editorial with her policies and appointments:
Roberts is one of seven top journalists and editors who have quit the paper since Thursday. Several others in that group also warned that local owners are not always a better situation than corporate chains."I was pleased when she bought the paper, an independent owner not beholden to stockholders. It seemed like a plus," said Don Murphy, the former deputy managing editor and a 19-year News-Press veteran who was the first to resign. "But she had no experience with newspapers, no knowledge of newspapers and it was not a traditional [private] ownership - handed down generation to generation."
Columnist Barney Brantingham, a 46-year employee and columnist since 1977, agreed. "I call it amateur hour," he said of such wealthy owners. "People who have money but don't understand the profession of journalism. That is what is going on here."
And from a previous E&P article describing a Wild Scene at the Santa Barbara News-Press, where the Editor and others were escorted from the building:
Journalists at the paper "had greeted McCaw's purchase six years ago with relief, saying they welcomed the ascension of a local owner -- one known as an environmentalist and philanthropist," the Times' James Rainey related."But reporters, editors and some of Santa Barbara's most prominent citizens said Thursday that McCaw's tenure should give pause to many journalists around the country who have been pining for private owners to save them from publicly owned chains, which have been beset by budget reductions, layoffs and other woes."
How exciting. Hat tip to E Love for the story.
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Comments (3)
As a County employee whose employer is routinely subjected to the rants of this "paper," I am extraordinarily close to this story and have been following it since it broke last Thursday at the Independent and on their site they are blogging it like crazy at www.independent.com. Other great sources: http://blogabarbara.blogspot.com
www.santabarbarafree.com - a new paper daily that just surfaced a couple months ago, just in time and expanding as we type.
Keep your eye on this story, because as ZZ Top says, she's got legs!
Comment #1 Posted by: Lisa Snider | July 11, 2006 04:36 PM
Fortune Magazine has now weighed in: http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/11/news/companies/pluggedin_fox.fortune/
Someone at my work puts it this way:
This is a philosophical discussion that addresses the very roots of journalism and the free press. At what point does a newspaper stop being a news source and become a mouthpiece for a particular interest? The answers to these questions are why journalism departments across the nation have different concentrations such as News/editorial, public relations, advertising, mass media, and such.
I was taught that if an article contains opinions and not facts, it belongs on the editorial page.
...or the blogs, but unfortunately these days in SB we are having to go to the blogs for the truth!
Comment #2 Posted by: Lisa Snider | July 12, 2006 03:32 PM
NPR did a story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5555010
Press conference is planned today and a rally is planned for Tuesday - both at De La Guerra Plaza.
Comment #3 Posted by: Lisa Snider | July 14, 2006 09:14 AM