Star Flames Out

Starshine column is gone.

Sunday Voices and Sunday Business sections are entirely gone, like, uh, at least 16 whole pages on a typical Sunday, with vital opinion essays once from a variety of local perspectives.

Experienced reporters and editors are gone, and/or shuffled to beats that allow them to use 10% of their institutional memory.

Five community columnists are suddenly discontinued as of last Monday, providing a very local view on the local news from five other nearby communities besides Santa Barbara.

So ethics and integrity do not matter. Journalism awards do not matter. Advertising and revenue do not matter. Subscriber numbers do not matter. Community sentiment and respect do not matter. Just what DOES matter to the News-Press owner and publisher?!?!

Reading Travis Armstrong's San Jose Mercury columns... at the time of them he was fairly clearly gay; his columns describe boutiquing in the Castro district of SF with his partner, and he also describes the domestic partner law in terms of his partner Greg.

Nothing wrong with being gay, but somehow this possibility for Travis deepens the NP situation a bit... how does he feel about Dr. Laura? Did the old newsroom staff criticize him? How does his sexuality align with his Native American heritage?

So the only remaining reason to subscribe to (or even read) the NP just vanished. It actually solves the dilemma I was facing: I desperately wanted to say that i disliked/disrespected everything about the NP but Star's column was the exception. Now it's categorically true.

Speak up, citizens - E-mail voices@newspress.com to protest, or another light will go out.

Don't Worry Starshine
by the Bones Band

Click the link below or paste it in your browser:
http://www.esnips.com//r/td/doc/b2d51d45...

Four legs good, two legs bad...

Their latest spin on how a new bunch of kids as rookie reporters are better than the veterans who have been pushed out or moved to beats where their experience does not apply. Of course, will the News-Press write up an actual news article about who was hired, what their local experience actually is, and why the veteran reporters already there no longer are suitable to cover the beats they finally know as experts.
--------------
August 18, 2006 08:07 PM US Eastern Timezone
Santa Barbara News-Press Announces Emphasis on News
SANTA BARBARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 18, 2006--The Santa Barbara News-Press today announced the latest moves in the restructuring process that has been underway since earlier this year. Some of the changes were dictated as a result of the walk out of a small group of disgruntled employees. The News-Press has made the following changes as part of its commitment to the community to return the paper to its founding principles and journalistic mission:

Scott Steepleton has been promoted to associate editor with responsibility for a staff of nearly 60 newsroom employees.

Sixteen newsroom employees have been hired, including assignment/city editors, copy editors, designers and new reporters.

Beat assignments have been changed for better utilization of staff and to bring fresh perspective to the beats, which is standard industry practice.

Community "notebooks," which are more like diaries, are being replaced by staff-written local news as part of the renewed emphasis on more localized news coverage.

The News-Press expects that union organizers will quickly take these changes as being unfair labor practices. The paper hastens to assure the Teamsters union that these planned changes have absolutely nothing to do with any union organizing attempts. The News-Press continues to cooperate fully with the NLRB process.

For more than a century, the Santa Barbara News-Press has provided the community with dependable daily news on local and national current events. Located in the heart of Santa Barbara, the award winning News-Press continues its long tradition of commitment and dedication to journalistic excellence. For more information on the Santa Barbara News-Press, visit the Web site at www.newspress.com.
Contacts
Agnes Huff Communications Group, LLC
Agnes Huff, PhD, 310-641-2525
ahuff@ahuffgroup.com

Who are these 16 new newsroom employees? And why is the only way that Newspress can communicate to the world through those spin pieces from Huff and Puff Communications?

Nothing is at their staff directory at the newspress web site. All I found there is the directory with the huge number of staff who were pushed out now off the list, and an edit where Molina in the alphabetical sequence was replaced by Kogan.

Seems like Newspress is afraid, very afraid, of revealing to the public, their customers, who these new staff rookies really are and what their experience and qualifications really is or is not.

As I have read at other blog entries, the staff who departed did so for a reason, and the others who were hired or turned into editors were hired and so promoted also for a reason. What are those reasons?

McCaw may think that she has taken on a group of dissident employees, but in fact she has taken on her community (i.e., her customers). Really smart business, a classic lose/lose situation, great management skill. Try a nice red state, wendy, where your values may not be so out of step with the zeitgeist.

Get that headline in their own news release:
"News-Press Announces Emphasis on News"

A newspaper has to announce it has an emphasis on news. Think about it.

Memo to bones: Knock out a little ditty about Lincoln's assasination next, would you?

Don't be so lazy, Tommy.. pay me or you go write one!

here Tommy..I'll help you..
"Lincoln came out to watch a play with his colleagues
On a dark day for president's and a gun that made him bleed... see? it's easy..now you finish it and post it..and make it rock!

Where did 60 newsroom employees come from? When I was a copy editor there under the NYT the traditional number was 50, and that was pushing it. When 16 unnamed employees have been hired, if that is true, they surely are either scabs or opportunists, not reporters, editors or designers.

Starshine Roshell is a beautiful, hilarious, brilliant and passionate writer, with a needed perspective for all readers, but particularly in her SB neighborhood. And silencing the press is the oldest trick in the book - and was one of the freedoms this country was founded on.
So, rock on, Starshine, we're behind you in and support your freedom to report, your style.

The specticaled, frizzed macaw is truly a
rara avis. Usually looks as though the
persimmons had for breakfast were really,
really puckery. This sub-sub species may be
seen going to large private places, migrating
to the Agean, and other lush roosts...but like
Nero, this one also fiddled while the SBNP
was going up in smoke. Be careful, this one
is larded, both with money and extra carbs for
the long winter season. Comports with other
carrion lovers, lawyers and complicit spinners,
who deny that the nest of the SFM is fouled.
One who is close to this avian critter, the
travois person, is leaving tracks easy to follow
and hard to forget. A good asset for the
frizzled mccaw flock.

Square Deal

I've just returned from 2 days in LA. can someone please tell me why gas is 30cents cheaper ??