good days at the santa barbara news-press

Here's another update:  http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/07/how_to_become_a_national.html

 

What kills me over the whole thing is how they didn't want Armstrong's DUI to be published, but that news is now being published in paper's all over the world.
Got to think his career is in trouble.

 

Shouldn't come as too much of a surprise McCay has been meddling with the news. If I recall correctly, it was in 2002 that she ran a front page editorial in the news-press backing her infamous -- and unsuccesful -- attempt to ban the public from using the beach below her cliff-side property.

Probably related, if not the same dude. Spratt is a young guy, I think mid to late twenties. Never actually met him, but a friend of mine I just graduated with at UCSB and edited with for a few years at the Nexus (UCSB college pape) was a finalist for the News-Press design position and interviewed with Spratt 2+ weeks ago. Good guy, from what I hear. I'd be curious to see how this will affect the current sports staff, I learned a great deal from just being around some of those guys on the news-press staff. Most of them were really helpful to us Nexus scrubs in the press box.

 

A good friend of mine is a section editor (not sports) at a newspaper here in Indiana.

He mentioned during a telephone call, in passing, that two of the applicants he got for one opening at his paper (just under 100,000 daily) were from the Santa Barbara paper, and he found that odd.

Now, I can tell him why...

 

Santa Barbara named four new editors today.

Among them was interim sports editor Tony Peck, who came from -- the editorial pages.

I'll admit it might just look strange on its face; maybe he went to the editorial pages from sports or something.

http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002803341&imw=Y

 

DyePack. why wouldn't you believe that report? It was mentioned in plenty of place.

I call bullshit on DyePack.

 

So call bullshit. I've seen too many people put their tail between their legs and whimper. Shouting "fuck you" seems out of character.

 

I know Tony real well; I replaced him at Antelope Valley when he moved to the copy desk. He later was the wire editor and the sports editor in Santa Clarita before moving to Santa Barbara.

Good, good guy and editor with a solid background across the board.

His dad was the SE at Antelope Valley before moving to the Southern California Golf Assn. magazine. He passed away last December of a stroke, thus depriving readers of one of the true nice guys and experienced writers in the biz.

 

I'm still a little confused.
As I understand it, the publisher nixed a story on the DWI of the editorial page editor.
This combined with some style orders is what prompted the resignation of the top people.
It that is correct, I wonder about some things:
• Did the paper have a policy in place to report on the DWI arrests of employees?
• If so, is the policy front-page placement of the story?
• Did the paper have a policy in place to report all DWI arrests of local notables?
• Did the paper have a policy in place to report all DWI arrests?

If the answer is no to any or all, then I could see a reasonable argument to be made not to publish. You are then singling out a coworker for no reason other than because you can.
I once worked at a place where if an employee was picked up for a DWI, then it was automatically a front-page story. And I think also any arrest that was felony and higher got the same treatment.
I always thought that was a stupid rule.
But, again, if you own the joint you can do what you please. If you work there and don't like it, leave.

 

Jay,

As someone who works in the county and with some people who used to work at the News-Press, it goes way beyond the Travis Armstrong DUI story. It has to do with the editorial page editor suddenly being made the acting publisher, who generally considered the person who looks over the business side of things, and then getting the OK to edit and change news stories. It also has to do with reporters being reprimanded solely because they pissed off a rich-and-famous actor by publishing basic information that's already in the public domain.

Mainly, it has to do with a newspaper rapidly losing credibility because the readers can't trust it to be objective anymore. When a columnist who's considered a local public institution and has been there for 40 years decides he should resign, I think that's saying something.

 

A story about the thoughts of the aforementioned 40-year veteran, Barney Brantingham, just moved for the local alt-weekly (of course, the alt adds in that Brantingham has just agreed to be their columnist):

http://www.independent.com/archives/2006/07/why_i_quit_the_newspress.html

 

DyePack, you perplex me now and then, but it's mostly about design and shit and I stay out of it.

I don't know what newsrooms you've worked in, but in a highly charged atmosphere like this one, it's completely IN character for writers and editors to get into the face of their superiors when bad things go down. Read any account of that era, and there were no shrinking violets in the L.A. Times newsroom when the Staples fiasco happened.

The first "fuck youer" was the city editor who wound up departing, and she probably knew it then. And that instigated a chorus of them; emotional moment, no surprise.

Not only do I believe it, but I would have been surprised if it went down any other way.