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Editor and Publisher

Santa Barbara Editor Who Quit Warns Others About Private Owners

By Joe Strupp

Published: July 10, 2006 11:20 AM ET

NEW YORK

Jerry Roberts, the former editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press who resigned last week in protest of the owner's alleged meddling in news coverage, said the incident should be a warning to others who see a new wave of private buyers as the saviors for the troubled industry.

"There is definitely a downside," Roberts, 57, told E&P late Sunday, just days after he quit the paper he had edited for four years. "When you have one owner who is very wealthy and used to getting their way, you have this conflict between the audience of the paper and the audience of one -- the owner."

Roberts referred to Wendy McCaw, who bought the News-Press from The New York Times Company in 2000. Although she had long used the editorial page to promote her views, Roberts said, efforts to influence the news pages had been fewer in the past.

"She was extensively involved with the paper, with the editorial page," Robert said. "That was fine. She was pretty hands off on the news side when I was there, but that changed and became untenable."

Roberts, a former editor for the San Francisco Chronicle, said the latest wave of private ownership buys and speculation of potential future purchases by local investors should be looked at carefully in the wake of the News-Press situation. He pointed to recent purchases of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, and Times Leader of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. from corporate entities, as well as recent speculation that the Los Angeles Times might be sold to a local owner.

"With those kinds of successful, independent rich people looking to buy some newspapers, it has some resonance," he said of his situation. "Here is a case study of how that can work -- and not very well."

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."

Roberts said the final straw, for him, appeared a week and a half ago when, while he was on vacation, McCaw appointed Travis Armstrong acting publisher, with oversight of the newsroom. "The editorial page is like The Wall Street Journal -- we had been criticized by the editorial page for not covering certain stories in the correct way," Roberts said. "When she appointed the editorial page editor to be in charge of news coverage, that was it."

Murphy agreed, saying of McCaw and Armstrong, "it became apparent they were going to be very active in the paper."

The newspaper on Friday published a Page One editors note that reported the resignations, but said they were based on "differences of opinion to direction, goals and vision."

Roberts said many of the recent problems began in April when former publisher Joe Cole retired. Roberts said Cole, who had hired him, had long been able to offer a cushion between the owner and the newsroom.

"He had always been there and sort of been a buffer," Roberts said of Cole. "But he left and she began to be co-publisher. Things began to get a little rocky."

Roberts and others at the paper said McCaw had recently named her fiancé, Arthur Von Wiesenberger, as co-publisher. Cole declined to comment to E&P, while McCaw and Von Wiesenberger could not be reached for comment.

Several well-reported incidents began the fractured relationship between owner and newsroom, Roberts said, noting the discipline of editors for revealing an address where actor Rob Lowe had planned to build a home and a short item on a drunk driving arrest of editorial page editor Travis Armstrong.

But Roberts said the tension had occurred long before Cole's departure, noting that he had often been forced to write explanatory columns reminding readers that the editorial page did not reflect the newsroom. "Very clearly, I felt several times that it had to be stated," he recalled. "I would go out and I would talk to people and groups and that would be the first three or four questions. I had to explain that I didn't have a role in the editorial page, and I think the reporters also heard it from sources."

Since the resignations, the paper has had as many as 90 subscription cancellations, according to news reports, while many in the community are concerned that the paper might not be able to keep its credibility, according to the Los Angeles Times and others.

"The biggest issue is the hit in credibility," Roberts told E&P. "Whether it has as much credibility is going to be difficult." He also noted that the subscription decrease is a negative, but likely not any worse than the circulation problems plaguing the industry as a whole.

Roberts, who is married and the father of three, said he plans to stay in Santa Barbara and take some time off, with a hope of working elsewhere in news. "I've had some conversations with people," he said about future opportunities, but declined to be more specific. "I want to figure out what to do."

As for other newsrooms being eyed by private, local investors, Roberts reiterated his caution: "Make sure that you understand that the paper is there to serve readers and the need to delegate things to professional to do that. Either that or run like hell."

Joe Strupp (<mailto:jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com>jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P.

New York TImes

In This Paper War, an Owner Faces an Exodus of Journalists

By LISA ALCALAY KLUG

Published: July 10, 2006

Local newspaper ownership has earned praise lately, but perhaps not in the offices of The Santa Barbara News-Press in California. Last week, six top editors and a veteran columnist resigned from the paper, claiming the owner and her management had repeatedly undermined news coverage.

The journalists included the editor, Jerry Roberts; managing editor, George Foulsham; deputy managing editor, Donald Murphy; metro editor, Jane Hulse; business editor, Michael Todd; sports editor, Gerry Spratt; and Barney Brantingham, a longtime columnist who had been working at the daily since 1960 when he began as a copy editor.

The News-Press, which was founded in 1855 and now has a circulation of around 41,000, is owned by Wendy P. McCaw, a philanthropist and the ex-wife of Craig McCaw, the cellphone magnate. (Ms. McCaw's holding company, Ampersand Holdings, bought the paper from The <http://www.nytimes.com/redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=NYT>New York Times Company in 2000.)

Ms. McCaw and the new acting publisher, Travis K. Armstrong, did not return calls seeking comment. Sam Singer, a spokesman for Ms. McCaw, said the resignations came as a result of the owner's plan to increase local news coverage.

Mr. Roberts disputed that explanation. Employees quit, he said, "largely because of ethical concerns" over the policies of Ms. McCaw; the co-publisher, Arthur von Wiesenberger (who is also Ms. McCaw's fiancé); and Mr. Armstrong, who is also the editorial page editor.

"These are primary ethical issues of the blurring of the line between opinion and fact, editorial page and news page," Mr. Roberts said. "More than 100 papers ran a story about the resignations on Friday, but The News-Press was not among them. It ran a column by Travis Armstrong spinning it. To me, that proves the case that they're mixing up apples and oranges and that the paper is not doing a great service to readers who expect to find news on the front page instead of opinion."

When asked if the dispute hinged on former staff members' concerns for journalistic standards, Mr. Singer said, "That's nonsense."

Although the resignations appeared sudden, Mr. Roberts said tensions had grown since the April departure of the former publisher, Joseph Cole. Mr. Roberts described Mr. Cole as a buffer between the owner and the newsroom. Journalists complained about prohibitions against printing the term "Ms." or any address without management approval and the scrapping of a follow-up article about a drunken driving arrest of Mr. Armstrong.

Mr. Singer denied allegations of management missteps. He said, "Mrs. McCaw purchased The News-Press in order to give an independent voice to the people of Santa Barbara that is not cookie-cutter journalism." LISA ALCALAY KLUG

L.A. Times

Santa Barbara Residents Wonder What's Next for Their Paper

The sudden resignation of reporters and editors from the News-Press catches residents and merchants by surprise.

By Catherine Saillant and James Rainey, Times Staff Writers
July 8, 2006

Santa Barbara residents on Friday wondered what would become of the Santa Barbara News-Press following an editorial bloodbath within the 151-year-old local institution's stately walls.

Sports Editor Gerry Spratt became the seventh prominent News-Press staffer to quit this week when he dropped off his letter of resignation at the human resources department Friday morning. In the previous two days, five other editors and a popular columnist quit, saying that owner Wendy McCaw and her newly appointed interim publisher, former editorial writer Travis Armstrong, had censored or killed news stories over editors' objections.

Mickey Flacks, a 39-year resident and a fixture in activist politics, said the developments would leave the region without a "responsible, independent newspaper." The fallout to the community ˜ and the News-Press ˜ could be serious, Flacks said.

"To not have local news because the staff has disappeared or because the newspaper will simply be Wendy and Travis' rants is a real loss to the community," she said. "I hope that something will arrive to take its place, whether it's a daily newspaper or a website. It's desperately needed."

Sam Singer, spokesman for the 42,145-circulation paper, said that about 75 readers had canceled their subscriptions as of 3:30 p.m. Friday. Two reporters said they had been told by workers in the circulation department that the total was more than 90 before lunchtime.

Singer, who is based in San Francisco, said he was told that the newsroom on Friday was "quite professional" and that "things are moving forward nicely." He said Armstrong would no longer be writing editorials now that he was the publisher.

A day earlier, employees had shouted obscenities at Armstrong as he escorted the newspaper's editor, Jerry Roberts, out of the News-Press offices. The other journalists left soon after Roberts did.

The departing editors said McCaw was inserting herself into editorial decisions, violating standard journalistic ethics. They said the billionaire newspaper owner killed a story about Armstrong's recent sentencing for drunk driving.

They also protested management's punishment of a reporter and several editors for publishing the Montecito address where actor Rob Lowe hopes to build a mansion.

Reporters who remained on the job said Friday that Armstrong killed a staff-written story explaining why the five editors and columnist Barney Brantingham had quit the paper.

Instead, the News-Press ran a "note to our readers" at the bottom of the front page. In it, Armstrong said the journalists had left the newspaper because of "differences of opinion as to direction, goals and vision."

He promised that the newspaper would continue "to enhance our news coverage while maintaining both the standards of journalism as well as the standards of this community with respect to personal privacy, fairness and good taste."

The note didn't sit well with Steve Amerikaner, a prominent Santa Barbara land-use attorney and former city attorney. Santa Barbara is small, but it has a high degree of civic involvement and a sophisticated population that "deserves a first-rate newspaper," he said.

"You wouldn't have known there was something going on at the News-Press by reading the paper today," he said Friday. "You had to look at, oh, I don't know, the L.A. Times."

Amerikaner said the newsroom meltdown was the topic of conversation everywhere he went. At his local Starbucks, "I heard 12 different people talking about what was going on at the News-Press."

Downtown merchants are concerned about the fallout for business, said Marshall Rose, executive director of the Downtown Organization.

"We need a strong daily newspaper," Rose said. "Business relies on the News-Press to provide current events and as a print medium to advertise. To have the classifieds deteriorate in any significant way would be troublesome."

Rose, 62, said he grew up reading, and later advertising in, the News-Press, as did his businessman father. They knew all of the previous owners before McCaw, who arrived six years ago, he said.

"There have been changes, but they have been evolutionary, not revolutionary," he said. "This is a pretty dramatic upheaval."

On sun-drenched State Street, tourists and students filled trendy cafes and shops. Many local residents said they were unaware of the troubles at the newspaper.

But at Joe's Cafe, waitress Cathy McGee, 48, was distressed to learn that Brantingham was among the mass resignations.

"Barney quit? Oh, no!" McGee said, jaw dropping. "He's my favorite. He always stood up for the little guy."

McGee said she is no longer a home subscriber but that she reads the paper's local news each day at work. Now, she said, she will wonder whether what the News-Press is reporting is true.

"It's sad, because you don't have enough time to check things out at the City Council yourself," she said. "You depend on the newspaper to tell you that."

Those who stayed on the job scrambled to put out this weekend's editions Friday, with reporters filling in for the editors who quit. They planned to run more features and, perhaps, use photo essays to fill space that normally might be occupied by news stories.

About 30 of the paper's remaining journalists met late Thursday night at one of their homes to plan what to do next. They hoped to register their dismay with management but hadn't decided how best to do that, according to two who attended the session.

"We are really limping along right now. We are not doing all the reporting and stories we would like to be doing," said one reporter, who asked not to be identified out of fear of being disciplined.

The city's movers and shakers, meanwhile, said they were waiting to see what would happen next. Amerikaner said he has already heard vague talk of other media moving in to fill the void ˜ and that if McCaw intends to respond to reader concerns, she needs to act quickly.

"I don't know what it takes to repair it," he said. "But something dramatic needs to happen for the paper to reestablish its position and reputation within the community."

5 Editors, Columnist Quit in Santa Barbara

News-Press' billionaire owner improperly intruded on content, the journalists say.

By James Rainey, Times Staff Writer
July 7, 2006

Five top editors and a veteran columnist have resigned from the Santa Barbara News-Press, saying Thursday that the newspaper's billionaire owner had been meddling improperly in the editorial content of the 151-year-old publication.

Editor Jerry Roberts was escorted from the newspaper's headquarters before noon as several staff members cried and others hurled obscenities at the new publisher, Travis K. Armstrong, the latest in a series of people to run the paper under controversial owner Wendy McCaw.

Six years ago, the newspaper's journalists reacted with relief, even euphoria, when McCaw purchased the paper from the New York Times Co. They welcomed the ascension of a local owner ˜ known for her environmentalism and philanthropy ˜ over an investor-owned chain that had made sharp cost-cutting and layoffs routine.

But Thursday, reporters and editors described an "awful" and "surreal" scene ˜ what Santa Barbara's alternative paper called a "self-inflicted blood bath." Several News-Press employees and the city's leader said McCaw's tenure should give pause to the many journalists across the country who had been pining for private ownership of their papers.

"When the newspaper was up for sale, we were wishing for a local owner," said Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum. "Now we have one, and all I can say is, 'Be careful what you wish for.' "

The journalists who resigned Wednesday and Thursday cited several instances in which McCaw injected herself into areas they said were typically left to journalists.

One dispute arose when she directed that the paper not publish a short article about a drunk driving sentence given to Armstrong, then the editorial page editor and soon to become publisher. Another dispute involved her reprimand of a reporter and three editors for publishing the address where actor Rob Lowe planned to build his "dream home."

Several of the editors said the final straw for them came in the last week, when McCaw appointed Armstrong as publisher. The often sharp-tongued editorial writer told the staff he planned to directly oversee some news coverage.

Roberts and the other departing journalists believed that would obliterate the line that traditionally separates newspapers' news-gathering operations from their opinion pages.

"I think there is a good reason that American newspapers keep straight news separate from the opinion pages," Roberts said. "It's so readers can tell the difference between fact and opinion. To do anything that would lower that barrier is a very slippery slope."

McCaw and Armstrong did not respond to requests for comment.

A newspaper spokesman declined to discuss departing editors' specific complaints and blamed the exodus on editorial differences.

"For a number of months, there has been a discussion between Mrs. McCaw and senior editors about the direction of the News-Press," said the spokesman, Sam Singer. "She desired to have a stronger emphasis on local news, and these individuals didn't like that emphasis, and so they decided to part company."

Roberts, a former managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, strongly disagreed with that characterization. He said that as News-Press editor he had aimed to increase local content, and he noted that the newspaper had been cited for general excellence by the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. in three of his four years there.

Those joining Roberts in leaving the News-Press are veterans, most with decades in the news business: Managing Editor George Foulsham, Deputy Managing Editor Don Murphy, Business Editor Michael Todd, Metro Editor Jane Hulse and 46-year News-Press fixture Barney Brantingham, whose column ran five days a week.

"I still love the News-Press," Brantingham said in an interview. "I just can't work under these unprofessional conditions. I just hate to see what has happened to the newspaper."

Bryce Nelson, a journalism professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, called it an "amazing commentary" to have so many journalists leave at a time when jobs in the industry are hard to come by. "They must have felt like they were under severe pressure," Nelson said.

The Santa Barbara News-Press, with a daily circulation of about 40,000, has long had a reputation as a solid midsize newspaper. For much of the last century, the newspaper was dominated by owner Thomas M. Storke, a firebrand who briefly served as an appointed U.S. senator and who helped bring a University of California campus and a growth-spurring reservoir to the region.

McCaw, 55, bought the paper in 2000 for an estimated $100 million or more, using a fortune she built from a divorce settlement she won from cellphone magnate Craig McCaw.

She immediately gained a reputation as an iconoclastic newspaperwoman, favoring strong environmental protections in many instances but also demonstrating a libertarian's distrust of government. An early editorial during her tenure called for an end to the Thanksgiving tradition of eating turkey because of the suffering of the "unwilling participant."

Notoriously publicity-shy, the rookie media mogul drew unwanted attention with a protracted fight to prevent public access to the beach near her Hope Ranch estate. She waged another court battle with a former boyfriend, who she charged had wooed her to get at her riches.

McCaw's onetime lawyer Joseph Cole, who served as her publisher for a time, helped buffer the newsroom from a lot of her demands, many News-Press journalists say. Cole left the position in late April, and McCaw took over for several months as co-publisher, along with her fiance, Arthur von Wiesenberger, before appointing Armstrong to the post.

The presence of Von Wiesenberger ˜ a former restaurant critic for the News-Press who has been a consultant to the bottled-water industry ˜ did not salve concerns among reporters and editors about lack of savvy in the executive suite.

A serious snit arose in early June, when News-Press journalists prepared to publish a report that said Armstrong, then editor of the editorial pages, had been fined $1,600 and sentenced to four days in jail or community service for drunk driving.

In May, police found the journalist driving down a one-way street in the wrong direction; his blood alcohol level later measured at 0.23%, nearly three times the legal limit. The News-Press reported the arrest, and the alternative Santa Barbara Independent dubbed him "Wrong Way" Armstrong.

When he was sentenced, Armstrong reportedly told his colleagues that a second article would unfairly single him out. And word was delivered from McCaw's representatives that the news story would not run, according to two people familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they feared being punished for speaking about internal company matters.

Less than a month later, McCaw named Armstrong as publisher.

On June 22, controversy arose again when the newspaper ran a story about Lowe's successful bid to convince the Montecito Planning Commission that he should be allowed to build a 10,000-plus-square-foot home despite a neighbor's protests. After Lowe protested about the publication of his address, McCaw sent written reprimands to the journalists, saying they had invaded the actor's privacy and could have endangered his family.

Some journalists at the paper complained that McCaw was trying to protect her rich and famous friends and acquaintances.

Murphy, who quit Wednesday as deputy managing editor, said many readers might support McCaw's position but her response seemed disproportionate.

"That's a newsroom discussion worth a lot of talk," Murphy said. "It shouldn't just be issued suddenly as some edict from on high."

Singer, the paper's spokesman, said Santa Barbara residents were "fortunate to have a local owner who cares deeply about the quality of the news delivered to the readers."

Roberts, 57, said the paper would go on. "But it's a sad chapter for the paper, and it's sad for the community," the outgoing editor said. "How it turns out is anybody's guess."