Good fortune appeared to shine on Santa Barbara in 2000, when one of the state’s richest women bought the #Santa #Barbara #News-#Press, a venerable newspaper that at the time had been at the heart of the city’s public life for more than 130 years.

Santa Barbarans cheered at the notion of having a local in charge after more than a decade under the ownership of the New York Times Co.

They saw in #Wendy #McCaw an owner with the financial resources (once pegged by Forbes at $1.5 billion) to ensure long-term viability of the Pulitzer Prize-winning news outlet. And they liked what they knew of her politics: environmentalist; champion of wildlife. McCaw seemed in step with the liberal-leaning beach and university community.

The reports of a match made in heaven proved greatly exaggerated. Within a few years, McCaw’s relationship with newsroom leaders — and then with many readers — began to crumble. A “bloodbath” exodus of top editors in 2006 unleashed what would become a slow-motion unraveling of the newspaper and its credibility.

The downward spiral reached rock bottom July 21, when Ampersand Publishing, the McCaw-led company that owns the News-Press, filed for #bankruptcy. The finishing stroke came without fanfare or public notice.

“All of our jobs are eliminated, and the News-Press has stopped publishing,” Managing Editor Dave Mason wrote in a brief email to the outlet’s staffers. “They ran out of money to pay us.”

Santa Barbarans reacted to the shutdown with measures of sadness and resignation. Many said the newspaper’s fate had been sealed ever since McCaw began warring with her staff and injecting her right-leaning, government-upbraiding views deep into the news pages.

Whether through inexperience or intent, her critics said, McCaw transformed a respected local news organization — steeped in industry standards of fairness and independence — into a tormented plaything. Circulation swooned.
“It’s been like watching a cancer victim die,” said Dawn Hobbs, a former News-Press reporter, who was fired in 2007 after she called for readers to boycott the paper because of McCaw’s purported meddling in editorial decisions. “You are so sad at the end. But you’re almost relieved that the entity has been put out of its misery.”

Last week's Chapter 7 #bankruptcy filing by parent company Ampersand Publishing calls for #liquidation, not a reorganization, suggesting there will be little chance for a new owner to take over.

The filing claims the News-Press has less than $50,000 in assets and up to $10 million in liabilities. Two of the most valuable holdings — the News-Press’ graceful Spanish-style headquarters on De La Guerra Plaza and its Goleta printing plant — are owned by other McCaw companies.

Former employees expressed bitterness that the Chapter 7 filing could mean a crushing postscript to their two-decade legal fight with McCaw. They feared it might allow the owner to avoid paying nearly $3.5 million in #back #wages and #interest levied by the National Labor Relations Board, which years ago found the company guilty of #unfair #labor #practices.

McCaw’s repeated appeals extended the ordeal through last summer, when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that she needed to pay up.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-29/santa-barbara-news-press-bankruptcy-closure-newspaper-owner-wendy-mccaw