Evans, Schultz and Zant Fired Today
The Santa Barbara Independent and Craig Smith's Blog are reporting that Melissa Evans, Tom Schultz and John Zant were fired today from the News-Press.
Meanwhile, in yesterday's post -- Nelville Flynn comes back after a several week hiatus and tells us that the News-Press needs to protect itself against acts of sabotage. He says they are committed to creating an unbiased and capable staff but how do you do that when anyone in their right mind would be afraid to work for you? I can respect Nelville's intention to protect his(?) business but cutting off both legs yesterday and going for the arms today means that you won't be able to write tomorrow.
Meanwhile, in yesterday's post -- Nelville Flynn comes back after a several week hiatus and tells us that the News-Press needs to protect itself against acts of sabotage. He says they are committed to creating an unbiased and capable staff but how do you do that when anyone in their right mind would be afraid to work for you? I can respect Nelville's intention to protect his(?) business but cutting off both legs yesterday and going for the arms today means that you won't be able to write tomorrow.
posted by Sara De la Guerra | 2/06/2007 06:06:00 PM
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10 Comments:
Melissa, Tom and John -- I wish you the best. Fight this and stand tall....
Nelville is a phony, someone just stirring up trouble, someone who has no relationship to the N-P owners. I have no proof, that is just my humble opinion.
I worked with John -- known by his colleagues in the newsroom as Z -- and can say he's one of the most decent, gentle men I've had the pleasure of knowing. This is a guy who gave his all to the News-Press for 38 years, and to see him summarily dumped by the likes of Steepleton (who couldn't hold Z's notebook) and the others just kills me.
Please, boycott the N-P. Boycott its advertisers.
You, me, all of us -- we need an honest newspaper. Don't let Wendy destroy the News-Press.
Don't let Wendy destroy the News-Press.
Don't LET Wendy? She owns it, she can do what she wants with it. Perhaps this will be the best thing for the community, for the people over at the Daily Sound, The Independent and other organizations that actually report on what is happening in our community, rather than relying on AP feeds to fill some spread. If I want AP News, I can get that on the internet.
IMO, she's already destroyed it. It's her hobby. All rich people with too much money and too much time need to have their hobbies... moving the pawns around the board and dominating the game.
Do you honestly thing at this point in time she could even repair the damage that has already been done? People like Travis at the helm, with his verbal barrages at City Hall, his point of view guised as 'Our' POV?!
Honestly I think she's done irreparable harm to the NP, and the only saving grace would be another owner, one that believes in free speech, believes in the people working there, and has integrity.
SB City Hall could use a nice building for expansion. Perhaps Marty Blum could even have Travis's office.
There aren't many regular Blogabarbara readers who couldn't see this coming over the past several months. The deliberate but quite certain destruction of the News-Press by its owner is a drawn-out, painful affair, but a death it is, and a loss for most everyone involved.
I have grown over time to realize that Wendy really doesn't care how many laws she breaks, or people she hurts, on this perverse path she's chosen to walk. She'd rather kill off the newspaper than concede defeat, and at the same time she gets the twisted benefit and pleasure of harming as many employees, former employees and other perceived foes as possible, in the process.
Unfortunately, everyone, bar none, is a pawn in Wendy's little game, where her wonky emotions rule over logic and decency towards her fellow human beings, which she apparently places lower on the old Worth Totem Pole than even scrappy dung beetles burrowing into bird droppings over on the islands.
Besides, she can always take this as a write-off. It's a win-win for Wendy, even as it's a loss-loss for everyone else. Supposed loyalists like Travis, Scott and Yolanda, and probably eventually even the Nipper, if he gets to uppity, will get a big surprise package soon enough. If any of them think they'll be protected and kept on in some capacity after the paper dies, they're going to find themselves sorely wrong.
Firing all who support a union and replacing them with non-union-supporters (and then holding another vote) is an old move out of the Union Busting Playbook. I'm sure she has the best Union Busting legal advice money can buy. I'm glad it's the Teamsters she's up against. They understand these thuggish tactics.
These sort of union busting tactics harken back to the "glory days" of the pinkertons. While McCaw has yet to hire jack-booted thugs to physically intimidate her "subversives," her cabal of bodyguards comes close.
We don't live in the 19th Century anymore. Firing employees for supporting the Union is illegal, and this sort of slash-and-burn tactic is going to backfire on her in a dramatic way.
The real tragedy is that there will hardly be a newspaper left when the smoke clears. Just Steepleton, Armstrong, Von Weisenberger, and McCaw living in a house of cards.
Firing all who support a union and replacing them with non-union-supporters (and then holding another vote) is an old move out of the Union Busting Playbook.
That may work with assembly line workers, but not with highly skilled and experience employees with extensive contacts in the community, people who not only are irreplaceable but won't be replaced because no one of their caliber would go to work for the N-P under current conditions.
I'm sure she has the best Union Busting legal advice money can buy.
It doesn't matter how expensive the advice is when McCaw is acting impetuously; good advisors would not advise her to take the disastrous course she has taken. So there's no need to go all defeatist and raise the opposition to godlike status.
I'm glad it's the Teamsters she's up against. They understand these thuggish tactics.
It doesn't take much understanding to haul McCaw into NRLB court for her blatantly illegal actions.
With everyone gone now, I can't see ever re-subscribing to the News-Press. It's not the News-Press anymore. No Barney, no Starshine, no Randy Alcorn, no Melinda Burns... The only one left is my old friend from Jr. High. I just wonder how she's managed to survive.
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