Former Santa Barbara News-Press journalists react to bankruptcy of daily paper

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.-The Santa Barbara News-Press has been losing readers since legal battles began between its staff and publisher.

Several said it came as no surprise when the paper's parent company Ampersand filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy this month.

"This is just sort of a final whimper of what was once a great community newspaper," said Josh Molina, who worked for the News-Press from 1999 to 2006.

Former Santa Barbara News-Press journalists said things took a turn for the worse when the New York Times sold the paper to Wendy McCaw, the ex-wife of a cellular phone Industry billionaire.

At first, readers were excited to see a local saving the paper by buying it, but when McCaw and her fiance became a co-publishers in 2006, employees said things changed.

"Within a couple of months, five top editors resigned because they claimed she was interfering in the news on behalf of her friends," said former Senior Writer Melinda Burns.

Popular columnist Barney Brantingham resigned, too.

Readers saw employees tape their mouths in protest in De La Guerra Plaza in front of the historic News-Press building by Santa Barbara City Hall.

Some stopped getting the paper in protest.

Those remaining staff members overwhelmingly voted to unionize.

McCaw's company was later ordered to pay $2 million in restitution for unlawful firings.

"She contested that and to this day has not paid a single dime to any one of my former colleagues or to the teamsters," said Burns.

The filing claim there isn't much money left.

Former editor Jerry Roberts, who won a settlement in a lengthy defamation case, isn't buying it.

"It is not right, I read the bankruptcy filing. It states the paper has $50,000 worth of assets. Oh, Okay, there is a building downtown, there is a printing press, there's a lot, " said Roberts, " And I know there are a lot of ways for lawyers to move things around. It strikes me as very unfair."

The former employees are not gloating over the paper's bankruptcy filing.

They said there is no joy in the loss of a once award-winning paper that served the community for more than a century.

"It is incredibly sad, it is not as if we didn't see it coming," said Burns, "We did see that this was going to happen, very early on, we knew she was on track to destroy an institution."

The bankruptcy is the latest and perhaps final chapter to the story told in the documentary Citizen McCaw. 

Wendy McCaw is welcome to offer her own comments on the paper's demise.