Press Clips: Good News, Bad News for News-Press - SB Elites Differ in Helping, Hurting Reborn Outlet

Battling to gain traction in SB's Wild West media landscape, the upstart digital start-up gets a boost from a celebrated liberal donor - and the back of the hand from an exclusive local social club.

Community treasure and über-philanthropist Sara Miller McCune uplifted the reborn News-Press this week, even as another venerable Santa Barbara institution moved to undermine the upstart news operation.

McCune, who played a cameo role in the tumultuous recent history of the News-Press, is underwriting professional salaries for a squad of 12-week summer reporting interns, the outlet reported Monday, effectively quadrupling its editorial firepower.

By contrast, the historic, private Santa Barbara Club in recent days blindsided the News-Press with a startling, censorious rebuke: Five months after inviting Will Belfiore, its boyish publisher, to address Club members as part of its “Distinguished Speaker Series,” executives abruptly pulled the plug — five days before the long-scheduled date for his presentation.

The cancellation unfolded behind-the-scenes in less than 24 hours, as a handful of influential members — most notably Noozhawk Publisher and club stalwart Bill Macfadyen — agitated to torpedo the speech, according to a review of email correspondence and conversations with half a dozen club sources, most of whom requested anonymity to preserve personal relationships.

The episode has ruffled feathers within Santa Barbara’s oldest social club, leading its president to add a special item to this week’s governing board meeting agenda.

At first glance a trifling tempest in a teapot, the cancellation offers a rare glimpse inside the Beaux-Arts walls of the Club’s 1904 Francis W. Wilson downtown clubhouse — an institution founded in 1892 that plays an under-appreciated but outsized role in the local power structure, where business, political, media, and multi-generational landowning elites meet informally to discuss matters of mutual, small-town self-interest.

As a journalistic matter, the Club’s blackballing of the News-Press is the latest twist in a decades-long swirl of controversy surrounding the landmark California news title. It’s also a snapshot of the bitter rivalries in Santa Barbara’s fiercely competitive media landscape, where a handful of underfunded outlets ferociously contend for readers, advertisers, subscribers, and donors while viewing the new online publication as an unwelcome interloper — although the News-Press traces its founding as a Santa Barbara publication to 1868.

“It was definitely a shock,” said the 28-year-old publisher Belfiore, a Santa Barbara High academic all-star and Harvard grad. “It’s a little bit surprising to have that happen here in my hometown.”

Oh, never mind. Last December, the newly-appointed leader of the relaunched Santa Barbara News-Press was delighted to receive a warmly worded invitation to address the Santa Barbara Club membership.

“I am 100 percent sure that our members would be very interested in knowing what the SB News-Press has been up to and what the future is going to look like for the paper,” General Manager Linda Spann emailed him, offering a spring slot on the “Distinguished Speaker Series” schedule.

On May 13 — five days before his scheduled May 18 talk — Belfiore was shocked to learn his appearance was suddenly off.

“We are truly so sorry that we need to cancel,” the club manager emailed him. “While some members were genuinely excited to hear your perspective … the News-Press also carries a complicated and controversial history within our community. Unfortunately, many members expressed strong concerns about hosting this event.”

Unbeknownst to Belfiore, his appearance had been targeted by a last-minute flurry of complaints from members, including Macfadyen — among the most consistent public critics of the News-Press’s return, who has sniped at it in his weekly column while urging community leaders not to support it.

When Newsmakers began inquiring about details behind the cancellation, Club staff, members, and directors were less than forthcoming.

“I can’t comment — it’s above my pay grade,” Spann replied, expressing concern about losing her job.

Macfadyen, responding to multiple voicemails, texts, and email from Newsmakers inviting him to discuss the matter, responded at post time with a brief email:

“Yes, I’ve received your barrage. As you should know, I’ve made it a decades-long practice not to comment publicly on that newspaper. If I ever do have anything to say about it, I’ll do it on Noozhawk.”

In a cell phone interview, Club President Ellen Robinson said that she made the final decision to cancel Belfiore, acting upon Spann’s recommendation, but declined to identify club members whose objections led to her doing so.

Asked directly if Macfadyen was among the group, she told me, “Bill is immediate past president (of the Santa Barbara Club)…his voice is certainly heard.”

Our story to date. From its frontier origins through the halcyon days of the 1950s and ‘60s under the late Thomas M. Storke, the News-Press shaped and served Santa Barbara as one of its foundational institutions — influence that grew after the New York Times acquired it in 1985 and briefly continued after it was sold in 2000 to idiosyncratic billionaire Wendy McCaw.

Then came the infamous 2006 “News-Press meltdown”: mass resignations, firings, lawsuits, union organizing, boycotts, and community rallies as the new owner waged economic, legal and journalistic warfare against her own staff (including me). At one point, Miller McCune stepped forward and offered to buy the paper, which publicly rebuffed and insulted her.

The events of 2006–07 began a slow descent into irrelevance and, finally, bankruptcy in 2023. In bankruptcy court, local philanthropists bought the century-and-a-half-old archive before it could be sold off to an offshore digital click farm, donating the print archives to the Historical Museum and the domain name and digital properties to Newswell — a nonprofit connected to Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.

Last year, Newswell, which also operates news properties in Stockton and San Diego, relaunched the News-Press as an online outlet, bringing on Belfiore as its first hire. His first assignment was to rebuild the badly damaged brand by forging collaborative partnerships and building community support.

With speeches like the one he was slated to deliver at the Santa Barbara Club, for instance.

How the deal went down. A few days before last Christmas, Club director Spann personally invited Belfiore to speak, after members intrigued by the effort to rejuvenate a vintage local institution suggested the idea to her.

Club staff members and Belfiore quickly agreed on May 18 as the date, and he set about crafting a slide deck describing the outlet’s dramatic odyssey.

A flyer about the event was finally produced on Tuesday, May 12, and, shortly after noon, Belfiore received an all-clear email from Spann: “We’re excited to hear your presentation on Monday.”

Less than 24 hours later, at 8:45 a.m. on May 13, however, he received another email — informing him the talk had been axed.

Newsmakers learned that a few members who picked up the flyer on Tuesday expressed objections over lunch that day — in part from lingering distaste for the McCaw-era News-Press. At least one member also voiced concern that Belfiore would solicit donations, a violation of Club tradition (notably, Spann’s otherwise cheery email to him that afternoon also included a reminder: “We are not allowed to ask members for any donations. No passing the hat”).

When Macfadyen weighed in with Spann and other members during the next few hours, free-floating concern intensified.

Free marketeer Macfadyen may be forgiven for perceiving the News-Press as a competitive threat: among other things, the outlet hired Josh Molina, who had been Noozhawk’s star beat reporter and scoop artist for the previous decade, as editor in chief last year.

Whatever the motivation, his complaints were taken seriously at the upper levels of the Club.

Club President Robinson — who also serves on the boards of the Ensemble Theatre Company, the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, and the Carpinteria Arts Center — said she had looked forward to hearing Belfiore’s talk, but the 11th-hour flurry of objections was too much to ignore.

“Significant concerns were expressed by a number of members,” she said, acknowledging receipt of “Ten or fewer” emails in total. “Given the limited time frame, we wanted to give (Belfiore) as much advance notice as possible.”

Bottom Line. A week after being canceled, Belfiore remained bemused but characteristically sunny — and more focused on Miller McCune’s generosity than on his rebuff.

“The reason I was given was that members were uncomfortable with the topic, which was going to be the News-Press,” he told Newsmakers. “What I can say is that the story here is the rebirth of the local News-Press and how exciting it is.

“The outpouring of community support has been incredible,” he added. “That is the very crux of the story.”

(Editor’s note: Newsmakers Editor Jerry Roberts serves on the Advisory Board of the Santa Barbara News-Press online news site. His fight for journalistic ethics at the defunct News-Press daily newspaper is chronicled in the documentary “Citizen McCaw”).

Images: Noozhawk/SB News Press/Santa Barbara Club logos, signage; Above: the leaflet announcing Will Belfiore’s appearance that triggered opposition in the dining room of the Santa Barbara Club.