Media Blog Keeps Eyes and Ears Open

This week’s media blog features mostly talk about Santa Barbara from out-of-town, but also a goof by Craig Smith and big news in the Santa Barbara radio front, with which we will start.

* As reported on independent.com, Spencer Fischer and Adam Lundquist are out as morning show hosts at KJEE 92.9 FM in Santa Barbara. The two are being replaced by a syndicated show out of L.A.’s KROQ, Kevin and Bean.

Read all about the switch here.

* Golf Digest gave Santa Barbara courses a little soft love this week, calling Glen Annie a good starter course (though the author admittedly played the short version, apparently afraid of the course’s narrowness), saying that Sandpiper had a few too many “generic” holes to be considered a classic course, and falling in love with Rancho San Marcos, despite its “quirky” routing of five par 5s and six par 3s. Writer Matt Ginella, who also runs a blog called “Where’s Matty G?” (as one of those lucky golf “journalists,” he seemed to also hit up Texas, Florida, and Hawaii in December alone), also spent some time with Hitching Post II big men Frank Ostini and Gary Hartley, visited the new Terravant facility in Buellton, stayed at the Canary Hotel, and gave props to Cold Spring Tavern. He also, for some strange reason, does a forced nod to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cliches aside, S.B. courses could always use the extra publicity, because they’re usually too expensive for most of us regular folks to afford anyway.

* The Los Angeles Daily News did a quick recap of some of the San Fernando Valley’s biggest crime stories of the past decade. At the top of the list (which appears to be in chronological order) was the murder of Nicholas Markowitz in the mountains above Santa Barbara, a story that led to the 2006 movie Alpha Dog.

* Santa Barbara media watcher and blogger Craig Smith spent a few posts trying to get his stories straight on whether or not KEYT gave out employee bonuses this year. After initially reporting the company did not, he later retracted that story, indicating they had indeed given employees a gift from minority owner Anne Towbes.

* Meanwhile, a San Antonio television station picked up on a story from Nipomo where a resident had a display in his yard depicting Jesus with a gun and Santa Claus dead from gunshot wounds. Now, we realize some people may say “Santa Barbara” when referring to places like Goleta, Montecito, or Carpinteria. It is Santa Barbara County after all. But throwing in Nipomo, a town in our neighboring county to the north, San Luis Obispo County, is a little bit of a stretch. Especially when we’re talking about a dead Santa Claus!

* An interview with film director Nancy Meyers in Great Britain’s Telegraph about It’s Complicated spends a good amount of time on Santa Barbara.

* Attorney General candidate Pedro Nava cracked the Miami Herald in a wire story about California lawmakers sending out holiday cards asking for campaign cash. No word on how people in Miami are responding.

* Looking for a job? The Santa Barbara News-Press wants a part-time copy editor/designer while United Reporting is looking for a freelance crime reporter to scour the police reports for interesting tidbits three or so times a week.