Bryan D. Brown

Everyone I know is talking about the continuing drama unfolding at the Santa Barbara News-Press, with folks generally believing the worst has yet to come. Jennifer and I, for example, decided to do a preliminary search for apartments yesterday and it took us about 30 minutes just to locate yesterday’s edition for the classifieds. At least six people I know cancelled their subscriptions after the The Independent published their story on the resignations.

Incidentally, the main story on the front page yesterday was about some local residents appearing on Trading Spaces. Not quite All The President’s Men, but that’s understandable given the circumstances.

The L.A. Times isn’t hiding their glee, running yet another story on the exodus. I think it is safe to say that they are salivating at the opportunity to expand their readership in the Santa Barbara area - much like KPFK and KCRW have attempted to penetrate the Santa Barbara radio market. Additionally, they are using this incident as evidence of the potential pitfalls of local ownership and as a distraction from their own internal strife. Sorry, but the L.A. Times is not the answer to the problem of the Santa Barbara News-Press.

Unfortunately, the idea that “locally-owned media” is preferable to that of the large corporate media machines was dealt a bit of a blow in this whole affair. Of course, it doesn’t just take a corporation to screw things up. If your local paper isn’t accountable to anyone - especially the local citizenry - then it is not serving the people it should be serving. The paper should not just serve the whims of its owner - corporate interests or the nutty opinions of an individual owner. It should serve the entire community, and the community should demand nothing less.

Even in the non-commercial world, which on bad days still retains infinitely more credibility than any of the commercial media, there are occasional problems with accountability. Ask those who participated in the Pacifica Strike a few years ago - and the listeners and affiliates (like KCSB, for example) that supported those reporters who were involved. The reporters at the Santa Barbara News-Press would be very wise to look how that situation resolved itself. It took a great deal of support from listeners and affiliates to finally bring an end to the struggle within the network - and it required a complete revamping of the network in order to fix the problem.

Those remaining reporters at the News-Press need the support of the Santa Barbara community at large to resolve this huge media crisis. The credibility of the News-Press isn’t the only thing at stake. Given the prominence of the News-Press as our only daily, the credibility of Santa Barbara as a whole will also be judged by those watching this unfold. Much like politicians, we get the media we deserve… and I hope we all believe we deserve better.