5 Editors, Columnist Quit in Santa Barbara

5 EDITORS, COLUMNIST QUIT IN SANTA BARBARA
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: James Rainey]
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.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-newspress7jul07,1,4114254.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage
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* Mass Exit at Santa Barbara Paper Causes Wild Scene
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002801214