In the wake of a mass exodus of Santa Barbara News-Press staff over the summer and fall, City College will welcome three former employees to teach journalism this spring.
As of press time, 30 employees have either left or been fired from the Santa Barbara News-Press. Many left after citing a breach of journalistic ethics by co-publishers Wendy McCaw and Arthur von Wiesenberger, and Editorial Page Editor Travis Armstrong. Former staffers accused them of unjustly interfering with news content.
News-Press spokeswoman Agnes Huff disputes the charges arguing that “All the rhetoric surrounding employee departures is a deliberate and hostile campaign by the Teamsters Union to put increasing public pressure on the paper’s management.”
The incident made national news, gracing the pages of publications ranging from Vanity Fair Magazine to the Los Angeles Times.
Protests and subscription cancellation campaigns against the News-Press ensued.
While many of the employees found places at other publications, three former-News-Press employees have also found a part-time home teaching at City College.
Former Executive Editor Jerry Roberts, columnist Starshine Roshell and former Lifestyle Editor Andrea Huebner will be teaching courses in the journalism program in Spring 2007.
Roberts’ Experience
For someone as active and well-known throughout the community, Jerry Roberts isn’t too fond of the spotlight.
“I don’t like being the focus of attention,” Roberts said. “That’s why I became a journalist.”
Roberts spent 25 years at the San Francisco Chronicle, holding positions from staff writer to managing editor.
Since leaving the News-Press, he’s added teacher to his list of professions. Roberts is currently teaching an Adult Education class for City College and in the Extension program at UCSB.
Roberts will be teaching Journalism 101 “Introduction to News Writing and Reporting” at City College this spring.
Roberts joined the News-Press as Executive Editor in 2002. Roberts held that position until July 7, 2006, when he left with six other newsroom employees “because of a series of decisions that were made by the co-publishers that I felt conflict with the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics.
“People follow it like it’s a soap opera,” Roberts said. “Except it’s not. It’s peoples’ lives.”
Roberts, who received an ethics award from the SPJ for the News-Press incident, now has his chance to impart some of his experience to students, particularly in what he says is his sense of the state of the journalism industry today.
“It’s the truth business. It’s what people buy,” Roberts said. “If you start cutting corners on ethics, start cutting corners on truth-telling, people are going to stop buying.”
Roshell’s style
When feature writer and columnist Starshine Roshell resigned from the News-Press in September, she left in her own style, sporting “a polka-dot, Lucille-Ball kind of frock.
“Many of the resignations were so solemn,” Roshell said. “We thought it was time to be a little whimsical about it.”
Roshell will bring that playful sense of style to City College next semester for her feature writing class, Journalism/English 271 “Topics in Non-fiction Creative Writing.”
“Life is way too dynamic and interesting to limit storytelling to facts and figures,” she said. “That’s why I like features, because they appeal to the more human aspect…it makes you feel alive as a reader.”
Raised by parents in the entertainment industry, the Los Angeles native said her passion for storytelling spawned out of growing up in such a creative environment.
“Everyone has a story that’s worth telling and worth reading,” Roshell said. “That’s the job of a features writer – to dig and dig to find what that story is.”
Roshell plans to help students hone their digging skills through writing profiles and basic human interest stories as well as reviews and columns.
“One of the challenges of a class like this is being able to turn something that’s artful into something that can be explained very simply,” Roshell said.
Teaching will be “the first time that I’ve had an optimistic feeling about the future of journalism since the crisis at the News-Press this summer,” Roshell said.
But with a name like Starshine, she isn’t easily forgotten. She says her unusual first name comes from the popular musical “Hair,” in which her father starred when she was born.
“You can’t be anonymous with a name like that,” she said.
Roshell’s column now appears in the Independent, Santa Maria Times and Lompoc Record.
Huebner’s Vision
As an editor, former News-Presser Andrea Huebner’s specialty was working behind the scenes, designing and packaging stories.
But this next semester, she’s stepping up front – of a classroom that is.
Huebner will be teaching Journalism 101 “Introduction to News Writing and Reporting” this spring.
Huebner was reportedly let go after running a Dr. Michael Seabaugh column criticizing fellow columnist Dr. Laura Schlessinger.
Although she has expertise in both the linguistic and visual side of journalism, the greatest insight Huebner can offer students may be her skill of visual storytelling.
“A lot of people think visual storytelling begins when the story’s written. But it happens well before that,” she said.
Huebner said that arming students with tools that help them think visually about how their stories will look on a page would aid them in organizing the information in the story.
Huebner was Presentation and Food editor before becoming Lifestyle editor combining for seven years at the News-Press after leaving the Ventura County Star in 1999. However, Huebner isn’t new to teaching. She also taught at the University of Missouri at Columbia School of Journalism.
“I find it really rewarding to work with students…to help them discover their passion in journalism,” she said.