Six quit US newspaper in dispute with owner

The editor, four senior executives and a veteran columnist resigned yesterday from the Santa Barbara News-Press, alleging that the paper's billionaire owner had been meddling improperly in editorial content. Jerry Roberts, the editor, was escorted from the office as several staff members cried and others shouted obscenities at the publisher, Travis K. Armstrong, who was recently chosen to run the paper by its controversial owner, Wendy McCaw. There have been a series of disputes, but journalists say the final straw came with Armstrong's announcement that he would oversee some news coverage, thus obliterating the line that traditionally separates American newspapers' news-gathering operations from their opinion pages. (Via latimes.com)