Six top editors and a longtime columnist have quit the Santa Barbara News-Press, accusing the owner of undermining the newspaper's credibility.
Editor Jerry Roberts, managing editor George Foulsham and deputy managing editor Don Murphy, as well as the business and metro editors and a longtime columnist, quit earlier this week.
On Friday, sports editor Gerry Spratt, who worked at the paper for eight years, became the sixth editor to quit.
He said he felt management didn't value his department and had cut two reporting positions in the last two years.
The editors said owner Wendy McCaw and her closest associates had become meddlesome.
They cited two stories that they believe compromised the paper's ethics and pointed to the appointment of Travis Armstrong as acting publisher at the same time he was the editorial page editor.
"It's been a lot of little things that have cast long shadows," said Michael Todd, the business editor who resigned.
"The newsroom sanctity has been breached. We don't think it is or can be an ethical newsroom in the future."
McCaw's spokesman, Sam Singer, said the resignations were due to differences of opinion about the paper's direction.
{{/usCountry}}McCaw's spokesman, Sam Singer, said the resignations were due to differences of opinion about the paper's direction.
{{/usCountry}}"She wants stronger and more local news coverage," Singer said. "They had different interests and chose to resign."
The newspaper acknowledged the resignations on Friday in a published note to readers, signed by Armstrong.
The News-Press, founded 1855, has a daily circulation of about 41,000.