‘Santa Barbara News-Press’ Editor and Owner Part Ways over COVID-19
Wendy McCaw Likens Public Health Restrictions to Nazi Germany; Chief Editor Nick Masuda Ditches Paper
Santa Barbara News-Press owner Wendy P. McCaw and the newspaper’s latest editor-in-chief, Nick Masuda, have parted ways due to an editorial that McCaw wrote dismissing the COVID-19 pandemic as an exaggerated gambit concocted by liberal elites to bring down President Donald Trump.
“Our liberties are being stripped for what, a virus??” McCaw wrote. “Think about this. If this country can be put into this situation by a virus, what would it take to completely turn us into the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany? We are not that far away now having had to stand in line to get into the supermarket.”
Masuda, who took over the helm of the long-flailing News-Press a year and a half ago, found himself in terminal hot water with McCaw for posting a disclaimer at the end of her missive. It stated that the views expressed were those of McCaw’s only “and do not necessarily reflect those of the SBNP staff.”
