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During the past week, The Independent offices have been inundated with letters, phone calls, and emails, all concerning recent events unfolding at the Santa Barbara News-Press. In this issue, we have printed a few of these, including a most informative letter to that paper’s acting publisher written by one of America’s preeminent journalists, Lou Cannon. A complete posting of all letters and emails can be found on The Indy’s Web site (independent.com). Nick Welsh has compiled a timeline which will explain the who, what, when, and where of why six of the daily’s most senior editors, including Executive Editor Jerry Roberts, resigned. But the most powerful report is that by Barney Brantingham, perhaps Santa Barbara’s most beloved writer. He explains in great detail why he decided to leave a newspaper where he has worked for almost half a century; it is a great honor for The Independent to publish this moving article. For us, here at The Independent, it is an even greater honor to announce that Barney Brantingham has agreed to become our newest columnist. And everyone in Santa Barbara will be happy to learn that this year’s Grand Marshal of the Old Spanish Days Parade, Mr. Brantingham himself, will be continuing to report on his adventures as he, once again, eats his way through Fiesta.

Click HERE to Read "Why I Quit the News-Press" by Barney Brantingham

LETTERS

Dear Mr. Armstrong,

 I’ve been a newspaper reporter and writer for much of my long life. My wife and I moved to Summerland 16 years ago and have subscribed to the News-Press ever since. During this time, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing various publishers and editors at the NP, including respected journalist Jerry Roberts. Reporters have called me throughout the years on a number of issues, and I have been responsive to them. After 9/11, I was invited by the city editor to meet with the staff and discuss reporting in a time of war. I left the meeting impressed with the professional dedication of the newspaper’s reporters and editors.

By Paul Wellman

Travis Armstrong, 2006

Because of my positive experiences with the NP, I found it distressing last week when Roberts, several other editors, and your valued (and valuable) columnist Barney Brantingham resigned en masse. Readers were entitled to an explanation. Instead, they received a front-page editorial signed by you that displayed lamentable ignorance of journalistic verities. You said the resignations were an expression of “editorial differences,” apparently your euphemism for objections to suppressing the news. That’s not the normal use of the phrase. Editorial differences are what I had with your owner when she wrote (or had written) an editorial opposing the donation of turkeys to the poor on Thanksgiving. If memory serves, the editorial claimed beans and rice were a healthy alternative, as if poor people didn’t eat enough beans and rice throughout the year. My response to this editorial was to buy a batch of turkeys and donate them to the Food Bank.

But I never for a moment considered canceling my subscription in response to this shameful editorial. Wendy McCaw owns the NP, and she is entitled as its owner to endorse any idea, no matter how goofy. Once upon a time in our country, editorial pages were indistinguishable from news pages. Opinions and facts mingled freely, and most newspapers represented a faction, party, or cause. This changed throughout time not because publishers became better people, but because they learned — as Mrs. McCaw has not — that people don’t trust the news when it is merely an expression of opinion. In order to sell more newspapers and raise advertising rates, publishers realized they needed the readers’ trust. That is how modern newspapers evolved.

It is not an “editorial difference” with Mr. Roberts when the owner, former food writer, and you suppress a story that you have pleaded guilty to driving under the influence. That is a violation of your own previous policy because you obviously put your personal embarrassment ahead of the news. I understand that your rationale is that you are not a public figure. If so, you should take your name off the masthead and give up your column. You are the public face of the newspaper — all the more so because of your owner’s reclusiveness — and readers have a legitimate interest in your transgressions, as they do those of other public figures. (It was a foolish suppression, since more people now know of your plea than would have if you just published the appropriate small item in the paper. But that’s beside the point.)

You contend in your editorial that we are fortunate to have a locally owned paper. I believe in the principle of local ownership, but it doesn’t bestow a free pass. I had the good fortune to work for 26 years for one of the nation’s great locally owned newspapers, the Washington Post. Katherine Graham, a woman with inherited wealth who believed in giving back to her community and her country, set a tremendous example that Mrs. McCaw could emulate. The world knows how Mrs. Graham defied threats from the government to her other businesses during the Watergate crisis, but this was just the tip of the iceberg. Mrs. Graham often came to the newsroom to praise reporters. When I covered the White House during the Reagan years, she developed a close friendship with Nancy Reagan, but never told me about it so as not to influence my coverage. I assure you that if a top editor of the newspaper had been cited for driving with nearly three times the legal level of alcohol in his bloodstream, it would have been reported in the Post.

It doesn’t take a big-time newspaper to practice honest journalism. Earlier in my career, I worked for the Merced Sun-Star, whose owner, the late Dean Lesher, was often (and accurately) described as idiosyncratic. But he understood the purpose of a newspaper. When one of the community’s most prominent attorneys (who had also represented the newspaper), was arrested for drunken driving, the lawyer wanted the news suppressed. Mr. Lesher refused to do it. Years later when I became editor of another Lesher paper, the Contra Costa Times, I asked what he expected of me. “Treat everyone without fear or favor,” he said.

It’s the right standard. None of us are plaster saints, and the act of driving while intoxicated does not disqualify you from your position. But suppressing the news of the incident does. You ought to apply the same standards to yourself and to the celebrities you write about as to ordinary people.

We all have to answer for what we do. In time, advertisers will learn they are paying rates for a newspaper that claims 41,000 subscribers and now has 38,000 and dropping. What will Mrs. McCaw and the former food writer do then — fire themselves? More likely, you will get the blame, especially if the declining paper is full of wire-service stories instead of local news, as it is today. But there are still honorable courses of action open to you. You could resign. Or you could write a column apologizing for suppressing the story about your actions, which are not trivial. Thousands of people die or are injured every year by drunken drivers, and their fates are more important than the survival of turkeys. Most importantly, you could pledge to keep editorial opinion and news reports separate in the future. Eventually, your owner might realize that she’s unlikely to find a real newspaper person to run her paper until she decides to follow ethical journalistic practices.

The sad footnote to the resignations of good journalists was provided by the Los Angeles Times, which apparently tried to get a comment from you or the owner and instead had to talk to someone in San Francisco, who was a NP spokesperson. That’s a strange practice for a local paper, don’t you think?

I hereby cancel my subscription to the Santa Barbara News-Press, which has forfeited the trust of the community.

 — Lou Cannon

READERS’ EXODUS

I first subscribed to the News-Press in October 1953. With only a brief break in the early ’60s, I have retained my subscription ever since. During that time, I have endured the mismanagement by egomaniac publishers, drunk publishers, and out-of-town, out-of-touch publishers, but I kept reading the paper everyday because of the contribution of fine reporters and columnists, many of whom I knew personally. Now, sadly, I must end this long relationship. The present owner and publisher have crossed the line from simple meddling to outright destruction of a talented editorial board. Adding insult to injury, Travis “Wrong Way” Armstrong, in Friday’s “Note to our Readers” had the nerve to claim that there was only a minor difference of opinion regarding “vision.” Even more preposterous, he congratulated Santa Barbarans for having a “home-owned” newspaper, as if a reclusive Hope Ranch billionaire or a recent Fresno ex-pat could ever be real Santa Barbarans.

Losing our beloved Barney Brantingham is the last straw. I’ve heard so many people throughout the years say, “It’s a dumb paper. But it has the movie schedule, and then there’s Barney.” Well, there’s no more Barney, and I can find the movies somewhere else.  

— Frank Frost

•••

Dear Mrs. McCaw,

I have been a subscriber to the News-Press for 27 years. I also worked at the paper for 22 years, most recently serving as business editor from 1990 to 1999. I canceled my subscription today because you and your new publisher have chosen to depart from longstanding journalistic practices that help ensure the integrity of a community newspaper. Specifically, I was appalled to learn that reporting about Travis Armstrong’s sentencing for driving under the influence was quashed. I thought the first story about his citation was fairly treated, so I was surprised that the follow-up was not reported. This signals that routine stories are suppressed merely because it puts management in a bad light.

I was also deeply saddened to hear that disciplinary action was taken against several competent, hardworking journalists because the address of celebrity Rob Lowe was included in a routine planning story. Journalists at the NP and elsewhere are responsive to security concerns of famous people, and certain information is withheld from time to time. As business editor, for example, I did not include personal information about the former CEO of one of Santa Barbara’s largest public companies, even though it had been published in the New York Times. We decided it was irrelevant to our business-based profile, but withholding information is certainly the exception rather than the rule — especially in a local planning story. There are always differences of opinion in a newsroom, but you are punishing experienced journalists for doing their jobs.

Your reactionary new policy — to eliminate addresses entirely from the paper and to take punitive action against your workers — sends a signal that management is either weak under pressure and/or has not clearly articulated to reporters and editors why they should deviate from basic journalistic practices. The no-address policy might seem like a harmless eccentricity, but it fails to provide the community basic information. For instance, readers were not informed in one recent story where the local police headquarters might be moving. While journalists elsewhere are fighting for the right to print articles of important national interest, it saddens me that the NP is becoming a national symbol of failing to provide basic community reporting.

I encourage others in the community to cancel their subscriptions in protest. This deeply saddens me, as I began every morning with my local newspaper. When I worked at the NP, I gave up many hours with my family to make sure I did my part to contribute something of significance to the local coverage, as does everyone in the newsroom. I am proud of much of the coverage of my former colleagues. My parents owned a weekly newspaper, so I consider printers’ ink to be a vital part of the city’s bloodlines. Your actions are a serious departure from journalistic practices that are honored for a reason. It is not enough that a newspaper has local ownership; it needs fair and evenhanded leadership. You and Travis Armstrong are not exhibiting these qualities. You are injuring not only your former employees, but your community. I urge you to reconsider your recent actions.

— Cissy Ross

•••

I’d like to add my voice to those deeply concerned by the reports of a disturbing lack of professional integrity at the News-Press. Many thanks to Nick Welsh for doing such a thorough job of making this important local news available to the public. As a former member of the city’s planning commission and a former board member of a local noNProfit, I had several interactions with Travis Armstrong when he was editor of the NP editorial page. Some of those interactions confirm for me the stories of mystifying censorship and inconsistent editorial practices now circulating in the community and national news. I think it speaks volumes that the man now elevated to publisher is so deeply troubled that he recently risked lives by getting drunk and then driving through our neighborhoods. But perhaps all of the more qualified staffers have already fled the paper that now appears to be a plaything of the rich and famous.

When the NP covered its own staff exodus story with no more than a brief note to their readers while national outlets were covering it in detail, I picked up the phone and canceled my subscription. I’ll be waiting for journalistic integrity to return to the NP before turning another page. In the meantime, I’ll get my local news from The Independent, the new Daily Sound, or the L.A. Times — all fine newspapers that saw fit to make this national news story public right here in Santa Barbara. You too can call the NP subscription line at 966-7171 and cancel your subscription. Tell them you’re canceling because Santa Barbara demands journalistic and editorial professionalism and won’t tolerate censorship.

— Jonathan Maguire

•••

Based on my certainty that the current regime at the News-Press would not print this letter, I’m expressing my outrage through The Independent about the abysmal lack of journalistic ethics at the daily. Travis Armstrong attributed the firing (“resignations”) of five longtime professional editors and a beloved columnist to “differences of opinion as to direction, goals, and vision.” How stupid does Mr. Armstrong think his readers are? The fired staff well understood the need for a firewall between the publisher and editorial/reporting sides of the institution.

There was no “difference of opinion”; there is a chasm in the understanding of ethics, with Mr. Armstrong and Mrs. McCaw being the impoverished participants in this matter. I’m joining those canceling their subscriptions to the NP. I will no longer support Mrs. McCaw’s abuse of a community newspaper.  

— Bud Laurent

•••

Today as I drove into Santa Barbara, I listened to the radio commercial for the News-Press in which glowing letters from delighted readers are cited as reasons for getting a subscription. As a writer of numerous radio commercials myself, I am stymied by the commercial’s irony and blatant distortion of the truth. I can speak from personal experience, joined by a host of others who have gotten the same treatment, that letters to the editor criticizing the NP for stories or editorials that readers find objectionable are not printed in the editorial page. It’s fine to write and read letters criticizing everything from God to country, but try criticizing your own local paper and you get no response.

We need a new paper, or at least completely new management and ownership of the NP. As a returning resident to this lovely area, my only serious disappointment has been the local paper, now validated by its recently resigned senior editors and columnist, to say nothing of many rank-and-file reporters whose numbers and names I have no way of knowing because the paper has failed to be forthcoming about its massive walkout. This story, and the debacle it represents, smears this town’s reputation.

— Ron Atwood

•••

Since we will never see our letters printed in the News-Press, we thought we might have our voices heard in The Independent. This is what we just wrote to the NP:

It is with sadness and anger that we are canceling our subscription immediately. We hoped the NP would be a good daily newspaper with both national and local news, but it has been very disappointing. The events of this week are the last straw. We stand in solidarity with the seven professionals who walked out due to the intolerable atmosphere. We are totally fed-up with the paper’s vicious, partisan attacks on our conscientious elected representatives. When you insult the majority of the community, how do you expect to do business here?

Now that Travis Armstrong has been elevated to oversee the news, as well as shape the editorial views to his conservative liking, we find no possible reason to patronize this paper. Armstrong embodies a total lack of editorial integrity, blurring all separation between news and opinion. It is expected that an opinion editor might disagree with elected officials from time to time, but to constantly insult the officials a majority of this community have elected makes no business sense at all. If enough of us walk away, how are you going to sell ads? We hope many others will send you the same message by canceling subscriptions.

We will gladly come back if you decide to hire someone who is more in tune with Santa Barbara’s progressive views and doesn’t trash our elected officials; if the staff who walked out are back to work in the professional atmosphere they deserve; and if dissent among the staff is not punished.

— Dr. Martin and Marian Shapiro

•••

Dear Mrs. McCaw,

This letter confirms my subscription cancellation. I have been a regular reader of the News-Press since I arrived in Santa Barbara 25 years ago. The T.M. Storke/Pulitzer/New York Times provenance both promised and delivered good reading and solid news coverage. There have, however, been uNProfessional personal crusades in the last few years. Elected officials have been selectively abused, personal causes espoused, and some silly spelling policies set. And now, seven of your finest have resigned in protest regarding dictatorial, preferential editorial policies. The new acting publisher recently showed poor judgment resulting in his drunken driving arrest, and then poorer judgment in failing to report his fine and jail term. The NP had, and lost, an opportunity to set a principled example.

A newspaper is not owned; it is a community asset under the stewardship of a publisher who believes in the mission of journalism and the great responsibility of those who deliver the news to us everyday.

— Jordan Mo

•••

I found myself a bit dismayed, though not entirely surprised, when I heard about the walkout at the News-Press, especially when I found out who left. As I understand it, they were not happy with the direction of the paper and the alleged continued interference with its content by its billionaire owner. Does this mean more front-page coverage of the plight of pelicans and plovers? Well, I won’t know, as this longtime reader just canceled her subscription.

While the NP has been a valuable asset to the community and a pretty decent newspaper in general, I have been feeling increasingly out of sync with it for some time now. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something in the tone that unsettles me — the frequent diatribes against the mayor, for one thing — and the walkout of these seven respectable journalists brings validity to those feelings and justification for my subscription cancellation. My 10 bucks a month may not put much of a dent in the newspaper’s finances, but maybe if enough of us take a stand, the powers-that-be might take notice. Or maybe not. Here’s a suggestion: Why don’t they come out with a new publication called The World According to Wendy and let the staff at the NP do their jobs?

Although I’ll miss my daily routine of reading the local paper, at least I’ll have some extra cash for a latte. Best wishes to Jerry Roberts, George Foulsham, Donald Murphy, Jane Hulse, Michael Todd, Gerry Spratt, and Barney Brantingham on their future endeavors. They should be commended for their courage.

— Cheri Nagle

•••

It’s ironic that the News-Press’s newsroom massacre happened hard on the heels of the Fourth of July. We do have a free press in the U.S., maybe craven and too easily misled by the powers-that-be, but free nevertheless — with the possible exception of the NP. Now, in our own backyard, Wendy McCaw throws a hissy-fit and puts the only toady she can trust in charge of her paper’s content. Travis Armstrong writes mediocre editorials — short on thought, not very well-written, and too often prone to vendettas that approach a parody of his boss’s quirky opinions. Wendy has always been in charge of the content on the editorial page. That’s okay; she owns it. But now she apparently owns the news content as well. If she’s got any guts or integrity, she’ll step from behind the skirts of her spokesman and his bullshit (“the resignations were due to differences of opinion about the paper’s direction” … blah, blah, blah) and write an honest piece about her journalistic philosophy, her commitment to the truth, and the mutiny and resignation of her news team.

— John Gostovich

•••

My father was the chief editor of a newspaper in a small town of 90,000 inhabitants, similar to the size of Santa Barbara. The newspaper was also privately owned. The differences are that my father’s paper was located in Silesia, Germany, and that my father was running the paper without interference by the owners for many years. He took me through the newspaper’s offices and plant on many occasions, bemoaning the advent of Hitler and his Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who put an end to my father’s independence and objectivity as an editor. I wonder what my father would say to this fiasco in our small town’s privately owned paper. To have something like this happen in our free country? In Germany, fascism was the dictator; it seems that here the moneyed have become dictators of another sort.

— Karin Finell

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