News-Press cuts 17 jobs, weekly

By ERIC LINDBERG

Santa Barbara News-Press officials announced a round of layoffs yesterday that hit 17 people and eliminated the Goleta Valley Voice in what newspaper management termed a reorganization effort.

Along with firing staff from its pre-production, press, advertising, community relations and sales departments, the newspaper eliminated all three newsroom positions at its sister publication, a free weekly distributed in Goleta.

“The economic forces affecting the newspaper industry are not limited to the News-Press or Santa Barbara,” News-Press co-publisher Arthur von Wiesenberger said in a prepared statement. “The challenges we face as an industry require a rededication to our core product. The actions taken today were necessary as we respond to our ever-changing industry.”

Jim Logan, the managing editor of the Goleta Valley Voice, said while he wasn’t expecting to lose his job, he wasn’t exactly surprised when he was called into a conference room yesterday afternoon and told the weekly paper had been eliminated.

“On one level, I’ve been expecting this since I took the job,” he said. “For essentially two and a half years, I’ve been looking over my shoulder.

“When you work for Wendy, it’s a day-by-day existence,” he added, referring to News-Press owner and co-publisher Wendy McCaw. “You never know when the end is coming.”

Along with the Goleta Valley Voice, the newspaper also eliminated Valley Living, an insert that ran in the News-Press throughout the Santa Ynez Valley.

In a statement from Ampersand Publishing, the parent company of the News-Press, newspaper management said they plan to expand coverage in Goleta and the Santa Ynez Valley, as well as Montecito and Carpinteria.

Don Katich, the newspaper’s director of news operations, said the reporter who wrote stories for the Santa Ynez Valley insert will contribute more aggressively to the newspaper.

“There were many stories that ran in that insert that never showed up on the pages of the News-Press,” he said. “…There are other resources, more behind the scenes, that don’t necessarily put words on paper but are involved in the production of a paper.”

He said the efforts and energy of the staff will now be focused on putting out an improved News-Press.

But Logan said he doesn’t believe the newspaper will be able to cover Goleta nearly as well as the weekly he managed for several years did.

“Everybody is gone, the Voice is dead,” he said. “They may give a page or two once a week, but the fact is the Voice is dead.”

He lapsed into expletives when describing how his staff had already put together much of the paper that would have been published today, saying they didn’t even get a chance to have a final issue.

Logan also criticized the newspaper’s management for making the layoffs during the holiday season.

“How heartless can you be?” he said. “I’m not saying this in a self-pitying way, but would it kill you to just let people get through the holidays?”

Katich said newspaper management had been evaluating the economic forces and didn’t come to a decision based on the time of the year.

“What time is a good time?” he said. “I can’t think of any time being a good time to do what was done today.”

Logan, who grew up in Goleta, said he is dismayed that what had evolved into the hometown paper will no longer be delivered every Thursday.

“I love Goleta and we tried to cover it like it needed to be,” he said. “We had a very small staff, but we covered what we could in the way that we could. I really hope that somebody covers it because it deserves to be covered.”

Martha Lannan, the weekly’s community editor, expressed similar sentiments when reached yesterday evening.

“I’m extremely disappointed and I think it’s a news niche that needs to be covered,” she said. “We really cared about it being professional and accurate.”

Lannan had worked at the paper for 10 years in one capacity or another — first as a proofreader, then in ads sales before working her way up to writing and editing stories.

Roger Aceves, Goleta’s newly appointed mayor, said he is also dismayed to see the weekly paper cut.

“They were our hometown paper,” he said. “They focused on Goleta issues — not only politics, but what is happening in our community.

“They knew our community,” he continued. “You lose that continuity, you lose that knowledge. I don’t believe we’re going to get the same kind of coverage and that concerns me.”

Aceves also expressed his condolences for those who lost their jobs yesterday.

“The economy is tough and we as a community have to stick together,” he said. “To see people lose their jobs right before the holidays — it’s going to be tough to fathom and I wish they hadn’t done this.”

Logan and Lannan said they are still weighing their options and haven’t figured out exactly what they’ll do now.

“I really haven’t decided, but I’m definitely going to be looking around,” Lannan said.

Logan said he loves working with seniors and helping people — and hopes to find a job doing both — but even mentioned applying at Trader Joe’s as an option.

“Anything to pay the bills and provide for my family,” he said.

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They're killing paper : 12/4/2008

Do you suppose this clown had to fire people in his other journalistic endeavor, his school newspaper? Maybe the "water king" should stick to critiquing water and Wendy should save the whales. They are killing a community treasure.

Indignant

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A SINKING SHIP STANDING ON END, READY FOR DESCENT : 12/4/2008

The handwriting has been on the wall for some time. Those dedicated employees who chose to stick with the ship were hoping ultimately that a new owner could turn things around. With the economy also tanked, current circumstances are more than could be overcome. it's a sad mix of incompetent management, a declining industry and a serious economic downturn. Those laid off can clear the downwardly sucking vortex as the ship does its vertical descent into the water. What goes around comes around. Karma is like VISA: it's everywhere you are and you can't leave home without it!

SoCalGal

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Did you ever read it? : 12/4/2008

If you never even read the paper, then why would you get so upset? I used to see the paper stacked up and nobody picking it up (even in Goleta).

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I'm very upset. : 12/4/2008

I looked forward to the Valley Voice every week. If I didn't get a paper I would run out Friday to pick one up. I enjoyed the articles and particularly the Crossword Puzzle. My friends and neighbors loved to work the puzzle and help each other out if we had a problem.. The News Press doesn't carry local news and not much of anything else.

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YOU'RE killing the paper : 12/5/2008

If everyone so dearly love what they fear they're losing, why don't you instead try supporting those left at the news-press who are putting the paper out everyday? I hear it's whole new staff of writers from local papers, young and experienced journalists, and old-timers who are trying their best to put out a paper, serve the community, and feed their kids. It isn't the two owners who are going to get hurt by this negativism, it's those new workers in you community -- trying to serve your community - that will suffer if people insist on killing a newspaper that's about a good as any I've seen in a community this size.

SoCalGuy

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life is short ... have fun : 12/5/2008

john lankford

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"Community" : 12/5/2008

I was truly saddened to hear of the demise of to local "community" papers. The Goleta Valley Voice and Santa Ynez papers played a major role in keeping their community informed and connected. Local papers help give people a sense of place. It's apparent Ampersand Publishing doesn't understand this. To stop the press on papers, during the holidays, without an opportunity for the staff to bid farewell is unnerving.

A friend

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: 12/5/2008

I'm rather baffled how there are daily reports in the press about continual layoffs throughout the newspaper industry, yet Mrs. McCaw's decision to streamline her newspaper is greeted like the holocaust. Papers are closing, being sold, staff are being laid off by the thousands, yet the Santa Barbara News-Press is supposed to keep a full staff even as a handful of vindictive people and the union work diligently at losing the newspaper ads and subscribers. I have never seen such a vindictive and calculated attack on an organization as I see coming from The Independent (which might have less-than-altruistic motives --- namely killing off it chief competitor); the Union, which is doing its part to strong arm the New-Press to the mat (oh, by the way, the UAW is finally relenting some of its bloodsucking tactics to the auto industry to try to keep them in business, after helping to bankrupt them) ; and then there are the unemployed makers of "Citizen McCaw" who are also waging their video vendetta for purely inspirational, non-profit, and non-egotistical reasons (Hey, is that $25 DVD still for sale?); and not to mention the blogging of one overweight ambulance chaser who doesnt have the guts to let people post replies to his mudslinging. And, in the face of all these obstacle, amid the worst economic downturn the nation has ever seen, Mrs. McCaw lays off a small portion of her staff to try and turn her business around. Oh my God, what a hard-hearted, evil, calculating thing to do! I believe these last 17 people laid off have the union and these vindictive types to blame for losing their jobs, not Mrs. McCaw.

eyeon

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The axe of Wenders & Water king : 12/9/2008

Whoa there...anyone who thinks it's the economy doing this is asleep.

Mangomamma

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