Plug Pulled on Mission & State

After roughly a year and a half, the foundation-funded nonprofit news website Mission & State will go quietly into that good night. Originally the brainchild of News-Press refugees, the outlet was designed to focus on investigative pieces that would be published via existing publications.

After its advisory board fired the editor, feeling that the site was on a financially unsustainable path and not living up to its goals, fiscal agent The Santa Barbara Foundation hatched a plan to hand over management to online news organization Noozhawk.

However, after representatives of several media outlets (including The Santa Barbara Independent) said they could not collaborate with a competitor, that plan has been scrapped. Over $300,000 in unspent donations, out of $1 million total, will be returned, said Foundation president Ron Gallo in a letter.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the staff of Mission & State had been fired by the advisory board.