The Left makes much of the supposed evils of “corporate” media–as though a company’s organization as a corporation, rather than as a partnership or as a sole-proprietorship, were meaningful in and of itself–but independent and family-owned outlets have their drawbacks, too. As anybody who has ever worked for an eccentric, independent publisher can attest, enthusiasms ranging from numerology to religious fanaticism to the publisher’s family’s social-climbing can leave editors longing for a good, old-fashioned, corporate type who only cares about the bottom line.

Those who champion independently owned media should have a look at the documentary Citizen McCaw, which chronicles the trouble that was visited upon Santa Barbara’s News-Press after it was published by Wendy McCaw, who made it big in the divorce lottery. John Diaz reports in the San Francisco Chronicle:

In scene after scene, a new documentary, “Citizen McCaw,” captures the tranquil aura and stunning beauty of Santa Barbara.
To see this film is to appreciate why Jerry Roberts, a former Chronicle managing editor, was so sanguine about his appointment as top editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press during a farewell party at his San Francisco home in spring 2002. I remember Roberts talking about the climate, the houses, the idyllic seaside ambience and – most of all – the appealing “scale of the operation” that would allow an editor who loves to roll up his sleeves to work closely with a talented staff that was yearning to improve.
No screenwriter could conceive a more perfect setup for a horror story.
“Citizen McCaw” delivers chapter and verse of how owner Wendy McCaw, who had bought the News-Press from the New York Times Co. for more than $100 million after her reported billion-dollar divorce settlement from cellular magnate Craig McCaw, poisoned the climate of ethics and professionalism that Roberts had been working so doggedly to elevate.
McCaw regarded her newspaper as a vehicle to celebrate her friends and personal causes – most notably an obsession with animal rights – and to punish her enemies, which included a good portion of the town’s political establishment.

Mr. Diaz hits the usual pious notes in his write-up, even deploying the creaky “church-state” cliche to describe the divide between editorial and business interests. He also writes:

“Citizen McCaw” is the scariest film involving journalists since “Zodiac.” It’s also a vital primer for these times, when economic stresses are leaving the press vulnerable to hostile takeovers of our values and standards. Unlike the Zodiac case, the pall and anxiety over this horror story has not lifted.

I’m not entirely sure how McCaw’s management in Santa Barbara is a greater assault on journalistic “standards and values” than Pinch Sulzberger’s management in New York City, or Dan Rather’s hawking of phony military documents, Glass’s one-man fraud marathon at The New Republic, Chris Newton’s imaginary sources at the Associated Press, or the daily barrage of sloppy, biased, lazy journalism that floats atop our public discourse like an oil slick. It’s true that there are lots of badly managed media companies, but the great problem with journalism is journalists.