The Santa Barbara News-Press was a broadsheetnewspaper based in Santa Barbara, California. It was founded in 1868 as the Post and merged with the rival News to form the News-Press in 1932. On July 21, 2023, it filed for bankruptcy and ceased publication.
The face of the News-Press building in De La Guerra Plaza.
The oldest predecessor of the News-Press (the weekly Santa Barbara Post) started publishing on May 30, 1868.[1]
The Santa Barbara Post became the Santa Barbara Press, which eventually became the Morning Press, which was acquired in 1932 by Thomas M. Storke and merged with his paper, the Santa Barbara News, to create the Santa Barbara News-Press.[2] Storke, a prominent local rancher and booster descended from the Spanish founders of Santa Barbara, brought the paper to prominence. For many years his father, Charles A. Storke, ran the editorial page; his son, Charles A. Storke II, oversaw operations between 1932 and 1960. In 1962, T.M. Storke won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing "for his forceful editorials calling public attention to the activities of a semi-secret organization known as the John Birch Society". His children did not express interest in continuing to run the paper, however.
Storke then sold the paper in 1964 to Robert McLean,[3] owner of the Philadelphia Bulletin, who turned over publishing of the News-Press to one of his nephews, Stuart S. Taylor, father of writer Stuart Taylor, Jr. (The Philadelphia Bulletin continued to be run by another nephew of Robert McLean.) Under Stuart S. Taylor's tutelage news writers flourished, including Dick Smith, Walker Tompkins, and others. The nearby Dick Smith Wilderness Area was named for Smith, a noted environmentalist. Larry Pidgeon was a well-known editorial writer for the paper. The paper was sold to The New York Times in 1984. In 2000 the paper was bought by Wendy P. McCaw, an ex-wife of billionaire Craig McCaw.[4][5][6]
In early summer 2006, six editors and a long-time columnist suddenly resigned. The group cited the imposition of McCaw and her managers' personal opinions onto the process of reporting and publishing the news; McCaw expressed the view that the News-Press newsroom staff had become sloppy and biased. Tensions had existed between McCaw and the newsroom since she bought the News-Press in 2000.[7]
Between July 2006 and February 2007, 60 staff (out of 200 total employees), including all but two news reporters, resigned or were fired from the News-Press. Newsroom employees voted to unionize with the Teamsters, and both the News-Press management and the Teamsters made multiple appeals to the National Labor Relations Board. Former employees have encouraged subscribers to cancel their subscriptions to the News-Press, and have encouraged advertisers to cease advertising in the paper. McCaw's attorneys have filed lawsuits against former employees, journalists, as well as competing newspapers, and have issued numerous cease and desist letters, to websites linking to the News-Press website, to local business that display signs in support of former employees, and to former employees who speak to the local media.[8]
The parent company of the News-Press, Ampersand Publishing, filed a copyright infringement suit on November 9, 2006, against the Santa Barbara Independent ("SBI")—where many former News-Press columnists had become contributors to the community weekly—claiming that a link on independent.com violated copyright law. The case never reached trial, as an undisclosed settlement was reached on April 28, 2008, resulting in a dismissal at the request of the parties.[9][10][11]
Last years
The newsroom was reduced from 65 employees to 20 by 2016; that same year, the News-Press was among the first newspapers to endorse Donald Trump's campaign for president. McCaw authored several right-wing editorials during the following years, including criticism of social distancing rules during the COVID-19 pandemic. The newspaper's printed edition was later reduced to four pages before being eliminated entirely.[12]
On July 21, 2023, the Santa Barbara News-Press' owner, Ampersand Publishing LLC, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation.[13] The July 21 edition of the paper was the last as Wendy McCaw said all of the jobs were eliminated and the paper had no money to issue final paychecks. The filing noted $50,000 in assets and between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities. Not long before the bankruptcy, the publication closed its historic Santa Barbara newsroom and moved all operations to its printing facility in Goleta before stopping printing operations in June and going online-only.[14][15]
In March 2024, with a tentative bankruptcy sale for $250,000 to Weyaweya Ltd., a Maltese company, the court scheduled a final bidding opportunity for April 9; bidding starts at $260,000 in $5,000 increments and sale includes the domain names, website contents and social media accounts.[16] Two former employees expect to be paid a combined $15,000 for website logins and backups.[17] The winning bid at $285,000 was from a group managed by Ben Romo, which formed a week before the auction.[18]
↑ The claim to 1855 rests upon a person named B.W. Keep who founded the Santa Barbara Gazette in 1855 and left the news business in 1858 or 1861, but then returned to the business when he helped found the Santa Barbara Democrat in 1878. he Democrat is one of the predecessors of the Santa Barbara News, which merged with the Press in 1932.Snug Spouts Blog, Aug. 3, 2006
The Philadelphia Inquirer, often referred to simply as The Inquirer, is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded on June 1, 1829, The Philadelphia Inquirer is the third-longest continuously operating daily newspaper in the nation.
Thomas More Storke was an American journalist, politician, postmaster, and publisher. He was awarded with the famous Pulitzer Prize for Journalism in 1962. Storke also served as an interim United States Senator, appointed to serve between the resignation of William Gibbs McAdoo in November 1938 and the January 1939 swearing-in of Sheridan Downey, who had been elected to succeed McAdoo.
The Indianapolis Star is a morning daily newspaper that began publishing on June 6, 1903, in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. It has been the only major daily paper in the city since 1999, when the Indianapolis News ceased publication. It won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2021 and the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting twice, in 1975 and 1991. It is currently owned by Gannett.
The Orange County Register is a paid daily newspaper published in California. The Register, published in Orange County, California, is owned by the private equity firm Alden Global Capital via its Digital First Media News subsidiaries.
The Reading Eagle is the major daily newspaper in Reading, Pennsylvania. A family-owned newspaper until the spring of 2019, its reported circulation is 37,000 (daily) and 50,000 (Sundays). It serves the Reading and Berks County region of Pennsylvania.
The Daily Nexus is a campus newspaper at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
The Santa Barbara Independent is a news, arts, and alternative newspaper published every Thursday in Santa Barbara, California, United States.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is distributed in the metropolitan Chattanooga region of southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia. It is one of Tennessee's major newspapers and is owned by WEHCO Media, Inc., a diversified communications company with ownership in 14 daily newspapers, 11 weekly newspapers and 13 cable television companies in six states.
The Santa Barbara Daily Sound was a daily newspaper in Santa Barbara, California that was published Tuesday through Saturday. After discontinuing publication of its print edition in late June 2012, publisher Jeramy Gordon was quoted by the Santa Barbara Independent as saying the paper would continue as a "web only" news outlet and that the company was "currently in a state of re-organization". On July 23, 2012 the website of the Daily Sound went offline and apparently it has ceased to operate.
Wendy McCaw is a businesswoman and the owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press, a newspaper that filed for bankruptcy on July 21, 2023.
The Herald-Sun is an American, English language daily newspaper in Durham, North Carolina, published by the McClatchy Company.
The American Journalism Review (AJR) was an American magazine covering topics in journalism. It was launched in 1977 as the Washington Journalism Review by journalist Roger Kranz. It ceased publication in 2015.
The Santa Barbara News-Press controversy refers to a series of events starting after businesswoman Wendy P. McCaw bought the Santa Barbara News-Press from The New York Times Company in 2000. McCaw proceeded to oversee some of the newspaper's content, and some news editors and reporters felt her intervention compromised the paper's neutrality and credibility. The tensions came to a head on July 6, 2006, when five editors and a columnist resigned.
Greka Energy, legally HVI Cat Canyon Inc., is a privately held company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration principally in Santa Barbara County, California. Formed in 1999 after the acquisition and merger of several smaller firms, it is a subsidiary of Greka Integrated, Inc., a holding company headquartered in Santa Maria, California, and is wholly owned by Randeep Grewal.
For activities prior to and surrounding this topic, see Santa Barbara News-Press controversy.
The Habit Burger Grill is a California-based fast casual restaurant chain that specializes in chargrilled hamburgers. The company also sells other typical fast-casual fare. It was founded in 1969 at Santa Barbara, California, and its headquarters are in Irvine, California.
Noozhawk is an online newspaper that provides coverage for Santa Barbara County, California. While initially focused on the greater Santa Barbara area, Noozhawk expanded its coverage to the northern part of the county in the summer of 2014. It gained further potential audience with the July 2023 bankruptcy of the Santa Barbara News-Press.
AppFolio is a company founded in 2006 that offers software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and services to the real estate industry.
Figueroa Mountain Brewing Company is an American brewing company based in Buellton, California. Founded in 2010 by Jaime and Jim Dietenhofer, the company grew rapidly during the subsequent decade, opening multiple tasting rooms across Southern California. By 2019, the company was producing 23,145 barrels of beer annually and winning medals in industry competitions. In 2020 however, the company declared bankruptcy and, as of October 2022, is undergoing reorganization in bankruptcy.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
