Santa Barbara News-Press controversy

Supporters of the newsroom staff, here Cedric Robinson, a UCSB political science and black studies professor, spoke at public rallies.

The Santa Barbara News-Press controversy refers to a series of events starting after businesswoman Wendy P. McCaw bought the Santa Barbara News-Press from The New York Times Company in 2000. McCaw proceeded to oversee some of the newspaper's content, and some news editors and reporters felt her intervention compromised the paper's neutrality and credibility. The tensions came to a head on July 6, 2006, when five editors and a columnist resigned.

They and three others staffers later received an "Ethics in Journalism" award from the Society of Professional Journalists,^[1] and the entire editorial staff was awarded the Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism as a result of their actions in the dispute.^[2]

The controversy led to at least three civil suits and one criminal investigation, as well as to the successful unionization of the editorial workers at the Santa Barbara, California, newspaper.

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^ Cite error: The named reference Payne was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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[Payne-2] Cite error: The named reference Payne was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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