Comment to Post: Today's Editorial in the SBNP

John San Roque didn't know where to put this but I think it would be useful for discussion -- especially in relationship to Craig's post today.

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I realize this completely disregards Citizen Stringer’s post, but I actually have something interesting to discuss.

Editorials in the News-Press yesterday and today, I believe, show a significant turning point. Up until now, Armstrong and the rest have taken the position that they’re right and everybody else is wrong--cabals, etc. The two recent editorials attempt to explain the position the News-Press has taken and the reasons for it. Things are going badly enough now that the NP feels the need to explain—something they’ve not condescended to do before.

For those of you who haven’t read the editorials, there’s some amazing turnabouts and comparisons. The idea that the owner “never interfere(s) with the news judgments of reporters or editors” is rejected absolutely. That wall of separation, evidently, has been torn down. Armstrong (with a straight face, I assume) draws a favorable comparison between McCaw’s current role and that of the owner of the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal. If you’re going to cite some newspaper lore and legend, might as well go big. He also throws in the example of the NY Times publication of the Pentagon Papers, giving credit to the owner for allowing it to be published. Evidently, Armstrong sees analogies between Watergate and the address of Rob Lowe’s vacant lot, or between the Pentagon Papers and a DUI arrest.

He also reveals more about his often-quoted “bias study”, saying that it was done in 2005, before any of the current acrimony. The study showed, according to Armstrong, that 2/3 of the respondents thought the “news articles were biased”. No one polled me, but I would have been in that majority because even back then I thought that the owner and editor definitely biased the news articles. As a matter of fact, I complained several times in writing about just that. Too bad the NP has never printed that study.

Anyway, I think the NP people have realized they are losing this battle for the hearts and minds of Santa Barbarans, so a change of tactics is in order. The role of the paper is being redefined, or perhaps, explained, to those of us who misunderstood what its function should be in this community. I think this is a last gasp. I could be wrong, but I think they’re ready to fold.