The rise, fall and reimagining of the News-Press

More than 150 years ago, Santa Barbara was beginning to grow up.

The town had over 2,300 inhabitants, State Street had been designated one of the city’s main thoroughfares and the wharf would soon be constructed.

In 1868, a newspaper was born: the Santa Barbara Post, forerunner to what would eventually become the News-Press.

Santa Barbara’s newspaper history is a circuitous path that saw its share of colorful characters, the rise and fall of publications and impressive growth of the News-Press in tandem with the blossoming of what was being coined the “American Riviera.”

The Post would be renamed the Press in 1869 with the financial backing of William Welles Hollister, for whom the city of Hollister is named. He and a group of settlers drove 10,000 sheep from Ohio to California in the 1850s and established a wool operation in Monterey with the 1,000 sheep that survived, the Gilroy Dispatch reported. Hollister later moved to Santa Barbara, where he was involved in other civic projects, including the construction of Stearns Wharf.

The Press’ first editor was Joseph Johnson, a preacher who “forsook the pulpit for the pen,” according to the News-Press’ history, as told in its book of famous front pages, “Headlines: A History of Santa Barbara from the Pages of its Newspapers, 1855-1982.” Johnson’s hard-hitting editorials put him in the crosshairs of those who took offense. One was the district attorney, W.T. Wilson, who horse-whipped Johnson on State Street after the newspaper had accused the D.A. of hanging out with unsavory characters.

In an editorial a few years later, the Press — under a new editor, Theodore Glancey — castigated a candidate for district attorney for brandishing a gun and beating up his opponents. The candidate, Clarence Gray, confronted Glancey downtown with a pistol. Glancey was fatally shot in the back as he ran for a doorway.

In the days when there were few sources of news outside of newspapers, the battle for print supremacy in Santa Barbara was intense. One such local paper, the Tribune, was edited by a 12-year-old. Another, the Index, was run by a pair of “spiritualists.” Even Harrison Gray Otis, the Civil War veteran who had come West and took up residence in Santa Barbara for a few years before moving south, where he would become publisher of the Los Angeles Times.

As the 20th century was dawning, the newspaper competition in Santa Barbara included three major publications, including the rebranded Morning Press. Thomas Storke returned to his hometown in 1898 after graduating from Stanford and joined a partner in buying the Daily Independent two years later. He sold the paper and left after nine years to go into the oil business, but didn’t stay away for long. In 1913, he again bought the ailing Daily News and ultimately merged it with the Independent, creating the Santa Barbara Daily News & Independent.

Storke was subsequently named postmaster during World War I. He put his father, former Mayor Charles Storke, in charge of his newspaper while he was away. At the time, the rival Morning Press took aim at the elder Storke and impugned his character in a 1922 editorial. Storke then sued and won, strengthening the Daily News & Independent and setting the stage for his family’s purchase of the Morning Press in 1932. The papers operated separately until 1938, when they also merged, giving birth to the modern-day New-Press.

Thomas Storke stayed active in the News-Press for decades to come. In 1962, the newspaper was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for editorials blasting the right-wing John Birch Society, which was widely labeled extremist at the time.

Two years later, Storke sold the News-Press to the respected owner of the Philadelphia Bulletin. Twenty years later, in 1984, the News-Press was acquired by the New York Times.

It operated under the Times’ ownership until 2000, when local cellphone industry billionaire Wendy McCaw purchased the paper. 

Under editor Jerry Roberts, who came to the News-Press from the San Francisco Chronicle, the outlet flourished.

“In the summer of 2006, we were really cooking — as a staff and as a paper: smart, well-sourced watchdog beat coverage, urgency and quick thinking on breaking news and agenda-setting enterprise reporting,” Roberts said. “In a newsroom packed with energy, teamwork and fun, we had high standards and held each other accountable.”

But things started to change as McCaw began to enforce her will over the newsroom.

“As the saying goes, things fell apart slowly at first, and then all at once. There were conflicts and issues between the owner and me for several years, but they stayed behind closed doors and I did my best to keep them out of the newsroom,” Roberts said. 

“That all changed in the early summer of 2006, after our publisher left suddenly and the owner brought in her fiance as co-publisher,” he added. “In a matter of weeks, I was put in the position where it was impossible to stay at the paper.”

Roberts and other staffers resigned over what they saw as intrusions into newsmaking decisions and inappropriate editorial control by McCaw. Rallies against her and the News-Press were held outside the newspaper’s storied headquarters. Subscription cancellation drives were organized after more of the staff quit or were fired.

Infighting between McCaw and the News-Press would continue for more than a decade, with the paper tied up in numerous lawsuits and legal actions, including an effort by employees to unionize.

By 2023, McCaw’s company, Ampersand Publishing, filed for bankruptcy and shuttered the News-Press.

But the storied news outlet was not dead. Local philanthropist Jason Yardi, working through Ben Romo, a former News-Press paperboy, made the winning bid in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court auction to buy the News-Press’ online assets. Their plan was to secure and preserve the archives for community benefit and keep them out of the hands of a European buyer.

The News-Press’ physical archives went to the Santa Barbara Historical Museum, which placed the only bid on the contents during court proceedings. Some 1,100 bound volumes of newspapers, as well as thousands of photographs and negatives, now reside at the museum.

In buying the paper’s online resources, Romo’s group also ended up owning the assets necessary to restart the News-Press as a business: the trademark, domain, social media accounts and copyrights to the digital archives. They wanted to give these to a journalism organization with the knowledge and expertise to use the News-Press assets to once again serve Santa Barbara.

The group chose NEWSWELL, a nonprofit organization affiliated with Arizona State University with a mission for transforming local news. 

In 2025, NEWSWELL took control of the digital assets of the News-Press, began listening sessions around Santa Barbara County and is now embarking on the exciting journey of reimagining the historic news outlet.

Here’s to the next 150 years.