The Santa Barbara News-Press was a broadsheet newspaper 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.

History

The oldest predecessor of the News-Press (the weekly Santa Barbara Post) started publishing on May 30, 1868.

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. 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, 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.

McCaw–newsroom dispute

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.

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.

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.

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.

On July 21, 2023, the Santa Barbara News-Press' owner, Ampersand Publishing LLC, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation. 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.

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. Two former employees expect to be paid a combined $15,000 for website logins and backups. The winning bid at $285,000 was from a group managed by Ben Romo, which formed a week before the auction.

See also

• Santa Barbara Independent
• Santa Barbara Daily Sound
• History of Santa Barbara, California
• Labor relations at the Santa Barbara News-Press