News-Press turmoil is hot topic these days

When it comes to the News-Press, I’m like the 10th body in the solar system. People didn’t even know I existed until very recently and they’re not sure if I’m a planet or just some hunk of ice orbiting in a vacuum very far away.

I’ve only been to the News-Press building perhaps four times, I don’t have a desk there, and I know only a couple of people on staff. As a result, I have no personal knowledge about the recent problems between the staff and ownership.

At the same time, my desk is in Montecito, home to most of the “high-profile” people in the area, which offers an interesting outside perspective on the situation. Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard people talk about the News-Press wherever I go: the weight room at the YMCA, Jeannine’s Bakery, McMenemy Trail and Miramar Beach.

The upheaval has given Montecito, and Santa Barbara at large, something to talk about. It is great gossip, relished with a mixture of schadenfreude, empathy and tut-tutting in turn.

After all, it involves a peeved celebrity, an extremely wealthy newspaper owner and dramatic resignations by staff members. The story also broaches news media issues people care about, such as separation of news and opinion, newspaper ownership and its power in the newsroom. Add sexy Santa Barbara to the mix and even readers in London and New York are interested.

In addition to being titillated by this cocktail, however, I’ve noticed that people in Montecito have consistently been made uncomfortable about at least one aspect of the story. There is now a perception that the paper treats famous people like Rob Lowe more equally, in that Orwellian way, than others.

I’ve seen the now-famous June 23 letter of reprimand from Wendy McCaw to Michael Todd, the former business editor, in which she stated, “Including Mr. Lowe’s address (in the paper) has damaged our credibility with the Lowe family and potentially damaged relations with other high profile readers.”

I have never met the publishers of the News-Press. For all I know, they care as much about relations with Cory Fidler, the homeless man I interviewed in last week’s column, as they do Lowe. They should be aware, however, that the majority of people I’ve talked to in Montecito believe that the publishers care more about the famous than the rest of us.

As much as anything else, this has damaged the paper’s reputation. For every Rob Lowe, there are many more unknown business people, academics, lawyers, artists — in short, all types — who read the News-Press and appear in its pages.

One man I spoke to the other day went so far as to compare McCaw to Leona Helmsley, who became infamous in the 1980s for inheriting a billion dollars from her husband, being mean to her employees and saying, “Only the little people pay taxes.”

Helmsley is not a figure that a paper’s publisher (or anyone else) wants to be compared to. The next few months will show if the perception of elitism sticks or if a more positive one replaces it.