Tag archives: journalism

Santa Barbara: The Tragic and Unfortunate Death of “KC”
By Jeff Giordano   |   August 15, 2023

This is a story about the death of a troubled 34-year-old woman, “KC.” A death that led to a Grand Jury investigation and a scathing Grand Jury report. A difficult story that you will not read nearly enough about. Allow me to explain: Last week’s Montecito Journal did a great job digging into the recent […]

WRECK-QUIEM for the SANTA BARBARA NEWS-PRESS
By Gwyn Lurie   |   August 8, 2023

We live in this time of great schadenfreude – consider the case of the OceanGate submersible. I’ve never seen so many posts online from random people gloating over the misfortune of a billionaire. However, I for one take no joy or comfort in the death of the Santa Barbara News-Press, our town’s only daily newspaper, […]

Thoughts on the Death of Our Newspaper World
By James Buckley   |   August 8, 2023

I grew up with newsprint. As a 10-year-old newspaper delivery boy for the Lowell Sun, I spent many a Sunday morning on my new Schwinn Birthday Bike delivering the very large (and prosperous) Sunday edition of the Lowell Sun. Over the course of two years or so, my route went from 41 to 123 customers, […]

Sunshine: The Best Disinfectant
By Jeff Giordano   |   March 1, 2022

March is swiftly approaching and for most California counties that means a bit of spring cleaning. As Santa Barbara County insiders know, however, we are not “most” counties – especially as it relates to transparency and possible corruption. Allow me to explain: Once upon a time, our nation had a rich fourth estate and deep […]

Democracy is Imperfect and So Are We
By Gwyn Lurie   |   June 3, 2021

I rarely comment on the content in this newspaper, but in last week’s edition our staff ran an opinion piece before we could screen it for our normal standards of respectful political discourse; the piece I’m referring to included the use of gratuitous language that some find misogynistic, bigoted, and should have had no place within […]

Zooming it in, yes. Phoning it in, no.
By Gwyn Lurie   |   January 28, 2021

Someone once said, “Journalism is what somebody doesn’t want you to know. The rest is advertising.” I find that quote not just clever, but true, and precisely why local journalism is so vital. With so much overwhelming national news, not to mention two diametrically opposed sets of news to choose from, both biased, I often […]

Letters to the Editor
By Montecito Journal   |   December 31, 2020

The Real Hoax Dear Mr. Hazard, I think deplorable is an apt title for your article regarding Trump, and your willingness to accept his ignorance by denying the existence of COVID “The Hoax.”  How many deaths and illnesses have occurred because of this denial? How about his 20,000 lies certified by fact checkers over the […]

A (Sadly Muted) Jubilee Celebration for a Longtime Scribe
By Richard Mineards   |   December 24, 2020

This column marks a major benchmark in my life! I celebrate my half-century as a journalist, which has seen my career spanning my time in London, Manhattan, and Los Angeles on newspapers, magazines, and television, with the last 13 years living in Montecito, 11 years of them as a columnist for this illustrious organ. If […]

The Indelible Legacy of Prize-Winning Journalist Ann Louise Bardach
By Emily Heckman   |   November 26, 2020

To say that 2020 has been a challenging year is the understatement of the century. We’re approaching a full year of being held hostage by a global pandemic that’s brought face-to-face social interaction to a near standstill. And with sheltering in place comes more reliance on gathering information and news from the internet, where the […]

Advocacy Journalism in Full Flower
By James Buckley   |   November 12, 2020

The year 1968 was an eventful one: On April 3 of that year, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was gunned down at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee;  two months later (June 8), Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, just hours after having won the California Democratic […]

Letters to the Editor
By Montecito Journal   |   February 6, 2020

Water to the Wealthy Last Monday, I attended the Montecito Journal hosted debate between Sup. Das Williams and his opponent Laura Capps, president of the SB School Board. During the debate, I became aware how Montecito struggles to obtain sufficient water. I was not aware that over 80% of Montecito water comes from out of […]

A Bias for Bias
By Gwyn Lurie   |   January 23, 2020

A story you may have missed while you were busy celebrating the holidays was the December 31 closing of the gargantuan (half million square foot) “Newseum” – just steps from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue – after 11 years and ten million visitors. Various news outlets decried the poignancy and irony of the 450 […]

Time To Move On
By James Buckley   |   November 21, 2019

It was summer 1995, and our predecessor, Montecito Life, had stopped publishing the year before. I waited six months to see if publisher Jesse Roth would be able to resuscitate his ten-year-old paper and when it became clear he was not going to, I began to put together the first 16-page issue of “The Gold […]

Dear Montecito Community,
By Gwyn Lurie   |   November 21, 2019

Gwyn Lurie is a local chair collector. She chaired the MUS School Board for five years, she co-chairs the Santa Barbara Human Rights Watch Committee, she is a founding member of The Partnership for Resilient Communities (TPRC) and was Chair of the Santa Barbara County Child Welfare Safety Net Task Force. Gwyn has spent enough […]

Up In Smoke
By Montecito Journal   |   December 20, 2018

One year ago, pretty much right now, I was looking up from Montecito Street in Santa Barbara at Montecito Peak on fire. I thought for sure all of Montecito would burn. But it didn’t, thanks to 8,000 firefighters. Dan SeibertMontecito (Editor’s note: Well, yes, while we can’t say Montecito was “lucky,” as we lost nearly […]