Episode 014... SB News-Mess: Teamsters Endzone Dance

In what may become the first in a saga series about the Santa Barbara News-Press-Mess, this episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs (OLPA) helps to explain what the latest Decision by Federal Administrative Law Judge William Kocol really means in this saga that will not end.

Journalistic ethics and standards ARE workplace conditions for newspaper employees and, therefore, are fully eligible to be subject to negotiations in a labor contract. Once that premise was confirmed by the Judge, everything else fell into place for how the Teamsters won, big time, and the News-Press lost in the 75-page Decision by the Federal Administrative Law Judge.

To describe what is next for the Teamsters and to celebrate a bit with the community, 75 or so people were present on 02Jan.2008 for an impromptu news announcement and rally at Plaza de la Guerra, all announced on less than one day notice for the middle of a workday. As shown in this OLPA video, John Zant, News-Press writer for 38 years, likened the news announcement and impromptu rally to an endzone dance in the middle of a long game.

This video includes snippets of the various speakers to the crowd and extensive interviews with legal experts and Teamsters unionists, including news writer Melinda Burns, Teamsters attorney Ira Gottleib, legal analyst Craig Smith, and Teamsters organizer Marty Keegan. Journalistic legend Lou Cannon also remarks to the crowd about how News-Press owner Wendy McCaw reminds him of the last days of the Nixon Presidency, when a simple apology could have reversed an impending institutional implosion.

On 26Dec.2007, Judge Kocol released his legal Decision about the claim by the Teamsters labor union that 8 union members were illegally terminated from their positions as writers for the beleaguered and continually disgraced Santa Barbara News-Press. In this Decision, the Teamsters won, and Ampersand and its News-Press lost big. The prospects for an appeal by News-Press, and an appeal of what (actual or imagined), also are described in several interviews in this OLPA episode video.

This latest chapter in the whole News-Mess is reported in many news accounts, such as by Santa Barbara Independent, Los Angeles Times, KEYT-TV, KSBY-TV, Santa Maria Times, KCLU-FM, and others. The rally and full remarks to the crowd by all the speakers are available in a video by local videographer Larry Nimmer in the latest installment in his ongoing series on News-Press-Mess. For those who prefer audio only, KCSB-FM radio news also broadcast the event, as recorded by KCSB News Director and OLPA Co-Producer Cathy Murillo.

This video episode concludes with OLPA Co-Host David Pritchett reviewing the two Federal legal hearings where the Federal Judges found that testimony by News-Press editorialist Travis Armstrong and other News-Press representatives was --ahem-- less than candid and extremely embellished. Pritchett reads from the Decisions by the 2 Federal Judges and also calls out editorialist Travis Armstrong for his selectively peevish, repeated, and imagined allegations of ethical wrongdoing by some Santa Barbara City Councilmembers. Pritchett even researched the fabricated "Helene-Gate" with a 5-minute phone call and wrote up the actual facts in a news note at Edhat on 06Nov. 2007, which received more than 600 reads with numerous comments posted in agreement. Despite that factual illumination, Travis Armstrong repeated his truthiness innuendo about that at least 3 subsequent times, most recently in an editorial column published 07Jan.2008, a full 2 months after his truthiness-laden scandal was exposed as the fiction it is.

Of course, the faux-journalism practiced by Travis Armstrong is that if a lie is repeated enough it must therefore become true. Notwithstanding that, Armstrong and any other representative of what is left of the News-Press have an open invitation for a full, un-edited interview to be recorded on video for a future episode of Off-Leash Public Affairs. We double-dare you (Travis Armstrong) to answer questions on the record just as you often demand that others appear as guests to be interviewed on your radio show.

The TV-17 debut of this OLPA episode was on 09Jan.2008, and it replayed 9 times until 22Jan.2008, with an extra showing at 2330 hrs. on that 22Jan.
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