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Five top editors and a veteran columnist have resigned from the Santa Barbara News-Press, saying Thursday that the newspaper's billionaire owner had been meddling improperly in the editorial content of the 151-year-old publication.
Editor Jerry Roberts was escorted from the newspaper's headquarters before noon as several staff members cried and others hurled obscenities at the new publisher, Travis K. Armstrong, the latest in a series of people to run the paper under controversial owner Wendy McCaw.
Six years ago, the newspaper's journalists reacted with relief, even euphoria, when McCaw purchased the paper from the New York Times Co. They welcomed the ascension of a local owner -- known for her environmentalism and philanthropy -- over an investor-owned chain that had made sharp cost-cutting and layoffs routine.
But Thursday, reporters and editors described an "awful" and "surreal" scene -- what Santa Barbara's alternative paper called a "self-inflicted blood bath." Several News-Press employees and the city's leader said McCaw's tenure should give pause to the many journalists across the country who had been pining for private ownership of their papers.
"When the newspaper was up for sale, we were wishing for a local owner," said Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum. "Now we have one, and all I can say is, 'Be careful what you wish for.' "
The journalists who resigned Wednesday and Thursday cited several instances in which McCaw injected herself into areas they said were typically left to journalists.
One dispute arose when she directed that the paper not publish a short article about a drunk driving sentence given to Armstrong, then the editorial page editor and soon to become publisher. Another dispute involved her reprimand of a reporter and three editors for publishing the address where actor Rob Lowe planned to build his "dream home."
Several of the editors said the final straw for them came in the last week, when McCaw appointed Armstrong as publisher. The often sharp-tongued editorial writer told the staff he planned to directly oversee some news coverage.
Roberts and the other departing journalists believed that would obliterate the line...