About the film

The film chronicles events since July 2006, when editor Jerry Roberts and five of his colleagues quit the Santa Barbara News-Press, citing owner and Co-publisher Wendy McCaw's abandonment of journalistic ethics, which McCaw denied. Since then, McCaw and dozens of her former staffers have been engaged in a fierce clash of wills that raises important national questions of journalistic ethics and media ownership.

“So if the publisher wants to be a William Randolph Hearst and start a war in Cuba, they can do it...”

A. Barry Cappello, McCaw Attorney

“The broad responsibility is to serve the readership. Serve it, really serve it. Tell them what the hell is going on and how come... and be not only useful, but essential in making the community work.”

Ben Bradlee, Editor Emeritus, Washington Post

—From the film

McCaw’s attorneys assert that she alone can decide how news is covered. The other side, represented by journalists and community leaders, says that journalism is a public trust, asserting that the publisher must keep out of the news operation.

The film chronicles the twists and turns of the resignations and firings, community protests, legal maneuverings on both sides, a precipitous drop in the paper’s circulation, a Teamsters' union vote, child pornography allegations, an NLRB trial, and numerous other events including a surprise ruling by the labor judge in late 2007.

Over 80 hours of footage were shot, including interviews with national leaders in journalism. Washington Post Editor Emeritus Ben Bradlee and journalist Ann Louise Bardach appear, as do former NBC News reporter Sander Vanocur, Ronald Reagan’s biographer Lou Cannon, Harvard's Alex Jones, Boston University's Lou Ureneck, and USC's Diane Winston. The film was shot in high definition in Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Washington DC and at many landmark locations in Santa Barbara.

Screening Update

Over 3,000 people attended the 3 showings in Santa Barbara in March and April 2008.

The film is now being entered in film festivals and shown at journalism schools.

Citizen McCaw will be updated this summer and then re-released in Santa Barbara after Labor Day.

Later in 2008 or in early 2009 it will be released nationwide and on DVD. Sign up now to be notified of the DVD release.

Download the CITIZEN McCAW movie poster.

Photo credit: Paul Wellman

Sold out CITIZEN McCAW premiere at the Arlington Theatre, Santa Barbara.