Santa Barbara Media Blog Returns

Welcome to a new and improved version of our Santa Barbara Media Blog, which we intend to be a weekly look at the goings on at various media in Santa Barbara. The original Santa Barbara Media Blog was born out of the News-Press turmoil of summer 2006, and became one of the most popular facets of Independent.com in the early days. We let it slip away many moons ago, but now we’re bringing it back, reenergized and ready to rock the mediascape.

From personnel changes and lawsuits to controversial topics and national attention about a local issue, this blog will be a quick, easy-to-read report on some of the media happenings around town – from radio to online to television to print, including critiques of our own publication when appropriate – and should help keep ourselves and other media accountable. Since our eyes and ears can’t be everywhere at once, please feel free to shoot us an email at news@independent.com with tips for the blog. Enjoy.

* Our first week of doing this certainly had plenty of oomph to it, mostly thanks to Daily Sound columnist Gina Perry. Perry’s column from last Thursday – and the paper’s editor and publisher Jeramy Gordon subsequent apology – has struck a chord both locally and in media circles outside.

If you hadn’t heard, the conservative pundit Perry, who’s certainly no stranger to stirring up controversy, stirred it up once again when talking about President Obama last week. Check out the last two lines of her column: The most dangerous extremist in this country is the one running it. Perhaps a bounty should be put on his head.

The Daily Sound issued a statement the next day, and took a beating in the Letters section of Tuesday’s paper, though to their credit they published the letters, all of them critical of Perry. Said letter writer Milt Hess: “I hope the Secret Service pays a visit to Ms. Perry – and to the Daily Sound – to explore the legal ramifications of publishing such material.”

Though the story was taken off the Daily Sound’s website, we have it for you, thanks to Google cache. Gordon published an apology in the paper and online a week later, saying there was no excuse for publishing the article. “The column is indefensible and the proper measures have been taken to ensure such hatred is never published again.” Gordon explained that Perry is not paid, and that, “[r]ather than yelling about what a dimwit Perry is, and threatening to never read the Daily Sound again, readers should write in with their own columns, just as Perry has.” Response to the article has shown there is no shortage of opinions. The apology note had 95 comments on it as of Friday afternoon.

Journalism watcher Jim Romenesko at Poynter Online picked up on last Thursday’s highly controversial column. Elsewhere, the blog Daily Kos and media watcher for the L.A. Times James Rainey both commented on it, with Rainey explaining, “Big trouble when a paper has to print this ‘Even if the assassination of our president wasn’t [the] intended meaning’.”

* A News-Press story with the headline “Floating Floats cruise waterfront for annual Parade of Lights” was a nice description of the event along Stearns Wharf Sunday. It even mentioned the event’s judges – Santa Barbara Councilwoman Iya Falcone, Yacht Club Commodore Homer Smith, the Harbor Commission’s Bill Spicer, and KTYD’s Julie Ramos – and quoted three of them. What you might not know is there were actually five judges on the panel, but one was left out of the story altogether. And who was that, you ask? None other than The Independent‘s own Starshine Roshell, a former employee at the daily. Coincidence?

Here is the line for those that don’t subscribe to the paper: Sponsored by many local businesses, including the Santa Barbara Waterfront Department, Santa Barbara Bank & Trust and the Santa Barbara Yacht Club, the event’s judges included Santa Barbara Councilwoman Iya Falcone, Yacht Club Commodore Homer Smith, the Harbor Commission’s Bill Spicer and KTYD’s Julie Ramos.

The newspaper did issue a correction, saying Starshine Roshell was not mentioned as a judge in the Parade of Lights. Ms. Roshell was a judge at the event. We regret the error.

* AOL financial website walletpop.com recently ranked Isla Vista the number one most dangerous neighborhood for property crime. Using some sort of crime data developed by a Dr. Andrew Schiller, as well as FBI data, the website says that out of 60,000 U.S. neighborhoods, your property has the best chance of disappearing in Isla Vista. Lock your cars!

* Uber-cyclist and Tweeter Lance Armstrong was in town Friday to promote his book. He got into town a few days early, and even headed up Gibraltar Mountain, though no word on whether he biked up there. Check out all his updates here.

* USA Todaygave a brief shout out to the Canary Hotel as a place where booking a hotel room early can pay off.

* Last week’s Angry Poodle in The Independent, was, in part, based on the premise that Assemblymember Pedro Nava’s name, when translated, meant “the stone who swims.” The only problem: It doesn’t. The Poodle wasn’t too far off with Pedro, but, as many who studied Spanish would probably know, he was a little further off with Nava, which actually can’t be translated to any Spanish word.

Here’s the Indy’s correction in this week’s paper:

Pedro Nava does not translate to “stone that swims” in Spanish. The Poodle essentially mispronounced the Spanish verb “nadar,” which does mean “to swim,” as the nonexistent Spanish verb “navar.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.