The Pulitzer Prize-winning Santa Barbara Information-Press, one in every of California’s oldest newspapers, has ceased publishing after its proprietor declared the 150-year-old publication bankrupt.
The newspaper grew to become an online-only publication in April. However its final digital version was posted Friday when proprietor Wendy McCaw filed for chapter.
Managing editor Dave Mason broke the information to workers in an e mail Friday, in keeping with NoozHawk, a digital publication whose govt editor, Tom Bolton, used to steer the Information-Press.
“They ran out of cash to pay us. They are going to problem ultimate paychecks when the chapter is accredited in court docket,” Mason wrote to workers.
On Monday, the Information-Press’ web site was nonetheless on-line, with the newest tales printed Friday. There was no point out that it might stop publishing or that it has declared chapter.
A voicemail message left Monday by The Related Press within the newsroom’s telephone quantity was not instantly returned.
The Chapter 7 chapter submitting by Ampersand Publishing, the guardian firm of the Santa Barbara Information-Press, mentioned it has belongings of lower than $50,000 and money owed and estimated liabilities of between $1 million and $10 million, in keeping with federal court docket information. A gathering of collectors, which quantity between 200 and 999, is scheduled for Sept. 7.
Anthony Friedman, the lawyer listed for Ampersand Publishing within the chapter submitting, didn’t instantly return a telephone name or e mail in search of remark. McCaw couldn’t be reached.
At its peak, the newspaper based in 1855, had a each day circulation of 45,000 and was printed seven days per week, serving Santa Barbara, an upscale metropolis of 90,000 folks. Editorial author Thomas M. Storke received a Pulitzer Prize in 1962 for a collection of editorials in regards to the John Birch Society.
McCaw, then a billionaire native philanthropist lively on environmental and animal rights points, purchased the each day from The New York Occasions Co. in October 2000 and some months later appointed herself and her fiancé, Arthur von Weisenberger, as appearing co-publishers.
Six years later, Santa Barbara Information-Press Editor Jerry Roberts stop the newspaper together with 4 different prime editors and a columnist to protest strikes by McCaw that they mentioned undermined the paper’s credibility. The editors who stop cited the publishers’ meddling in tales, which they mentioned compromised the paper’s ethics. In a single instance, the editors alleged McCaw was in opposition to publishing a narrative about one editor’s drunken driving arrest and later intervened to cease a second story.
The editors who stop have been additionally upset that McCaw had appointed the paper’s editorial web page editor because the appearing writer.
“On one hand you’ve got somebody writing editorials and then again enhancing information tales. There may be an inherent battle,” Don Murphy, who stop because the paper’s managing editor, advised the AP on the time.
The paper’s closure “shouldn’t be a giant shock,” Roberts mentioned Monday. “The paper’s been on a downhill slide for some time.”
“However the truth that the neighborhood has misplaced its solely paper is unspeakably unhappy,” he added.
Santa Barbara, which sits alongside the coast about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles, is thought for its gorgeous geography and wineries, attracting vacationers and celebrities alike for its delicate local weather and delightful views. The close by city of Montecito was the location of lethal 2018 mudslides that killed 23 folks.
About half of registered voters in Santa Barbara County are Democrats whereas roughly 1 / 4 are Republicans, statistics that mirror the remainder of the state. Below McCaw’s management, the paper in 2016 was among the many few to endorse Republican Donald Trump for president. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton received practically twice as many votes within the county. McCaw personally wrote an editorial endorsing Trump once more in 2020.
The neighborhood nonetheless has a weekly newspaper, The Unbiased, in addition to the digital web site Noozhawk. The closest main each day newspaper is now in Ventura County. San Luis Obispo and Los Angeles, every greater than 90 miles (145 kilometers) away, even have each day papers.
The Press-Information’ closure is the newest instance of a struggling information media, mentioned Tim Franklin, an skilled in native information at Northwestern College’s Medill Faculty of Journalism.
“We’re shedding on common two newspapers per week within the U.S.,” Franklin mentioned. “We’re on tempo to have misplaced a few third of all newspapers by 2025.”
Media corporations are having to compete with Google, Fb and Amazon, that are absorbing a lot of the advert market, and have but to determine a worthwhile enterprise mannequin for native information, he mentioned.
“The native information disaster is going on in each nook of the nation, together with in prosperous cities and suburbs,” he added.
The Los Angeles Occasions lately introduced layoffs and earlier this month bought The San Diego Union-Tribune to MediaNews Group, which owns a whole lot of papers across the nation.
The Union-Tribune, which covers the second-largest metropolis in California, is now owned by the identical chain that owns a slew of Southern California newspapers. The guardian firm is Alden International Capital, which has purchased up newspapers throughout the nation and confronted criticism for slashing budgets and chopping jobs.
In January, the Mail Tribune, one in every of Oregon’s oldest working newspapers, shut down, saying declines in promoting spending and issue hiring workers precipitated the closure.
The paper-based in Medford, Oregon, stopped producing a print version in September however continued working in a digital format till closing.
