Utopian Snake Pit

Despite the death knell of the News-Press, it didn’t have to die. The overall population of its market ranged from Santa Ynez to Goleta and on to Carpinteria, a good 250,000 potential readers. More than enough to entice potential retailers to advertise and keep the doors open despite the demise of newsprint in this country.

The problem as has been pointed out, by the only remaining full-time newshound, Nick Welsh, and Randy Alcorn, the former News-Press financial officer, was and is Wendy McCaw.The newspaper came into being with Thomas Stork and his son Charles. The family sold it to the Stuart Taylor of the Philadelphia Inquirer who in turn sold it to the New York Times. The local reaction was priceless and self-absorbed. It’s an out-of-town conglomerate so this is going to be bad. On the contrary as Randy Alcorn pointed out, the Times invested heavily with the staff and the physical plants but unfortunately realized that local advertising in this market was limited. So they sold to Wendy McCaw, a local with lots of money.Now comes a perfect storm of an incompetent, angry, isolated woman and the diminishing advertising revenue for all U.S. newspapers. Santa Barbara may be utopia for its residents but it a snake pit for any media depending on survival from local retail advertising.Ventura still has the Star, Santa Maria still has the Sun, and San Luis Obispo still has the Tribune, but as isolated as Santa Barbara is on the map, it has no daily and will never have an investigative nose that can smell out bureaucratic nonsense as well as a daily. That will eventually diminish this community. America and its form of government depends on the First Amendment and it’s called “freedom of the press.”It’s gone.