Santa Barbara's collective memory, sold for kindling(independent.com)
independent.com
Santa Barbara's collective memory, sold for kindling
https://www.independent.com/2024/03/29/santa-barbaras-collective-memory-sold-for-kindling/
89 comments
One outcome of the Deadspin mess might be instructive—a group of journalists abandoned it and started Defector, a successful worker co-op.
After Quitting Deadspin in Protest, They’re Starting a New Site https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/business/media/deadspin-s...
For more context on cooperatives in journalism, see https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mij/15031809.0007.203?view=text...
After Quitting Deadspin in Protest, They’re Starting a New Site https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/business/media/deadspin-s...
For more context on cooperatives in journalism, see https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mij/15031809.0007.203?view=text...
Glad to see worker cooperatives popping up!
I don't really disagree but be aware that many of those people working in journalist cooperatives would probably make more money working at McDonalds. (Of course I'm sure they find working as a journalist more satisfying.)
McDonald's CEO made $17.8 million in cash/stock/options in 2022, so working at McDonalds must be a good gig. If entry-level workers made 1/100th what the CEO makes, that's $178,000 a year!
Thanks for digging into this and for sharing this article! I hadn't seen this latest twist.
I'm friends with a number of the "paper’s staff who staged a mass walk-out". Very difficult times. Not mentioned in this article was the staff’s long struggle for union representation which they did finally get much to the ire of the owner.
The independent.com (another great, "generic", domain name!) has been covering the saga for decades: https://www.independent.com/?s=santa+barbara+news-press
I'm friends with a number of the "paper’s staff who staged a mass walk-out". Very difficult times. Not mentioned in this article was the staff’s long struggle for union representation which they did finally get much to the ire of the owner.
The independent.com (another great, "generic", domain name!) has been covering the saga for decades: https://www.independent.com/?s=santa+barbara+news-press
Sad tale. In its own way, as bad as the private equity management we’ve been seeing in chains throughout the country.
There has to be a great story as to how these two news sites in the same town got such high-quality domains.
There has to be a great story as to how these two news sites in the same town got such high-quality domains.
What’s funny to me is that https://www.noozhawk.com/ (along with others) took up the mantle when the SB News Press went downhill. That domain is not as hot.
And Noozhawk's almost Fark clone design when it first launched was pretty good, I'm not such a fan of what it's become. And it feels like their reporting has gotten a lot more focused on north county, rather than the city of Santa Barbara itself.
At least The Independent is still there for Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Isla Vista...
> To me, it feels like a harbinger of what we could see in the future re: domain purchases.
Something that the iSCSI folks considered:
So if there was a change of ownership, the IQN would change.
Something that the iSCSI folks considered:
- A date code, in yyyy-mm format. This date MUST be a date
during which the naming authority owned the domain name used in
this format, and SHOULD be the first month in which the domain
name was owned by this naming authority at 00:01 GMT of the
first day of the month. This date code uses the Gregorian
calendar. All four digits in the year must be present. Both
digits of the month must be present, with January == "01" and
December == "12". The dash must be included.
So if there was a change of ownership, the IQN would change.
Is this a big trend lately? Buying old newspapers and then putting them back up as SEO shell farms with recognizable names?
There was another story on here just a little bit back about an East coast lady that had her article stolen by a paper she used to work for, that then returned, zombified, under the same name, yet with different bylines.
Similar to this article from Buzzfeed (2020) about pseudo-"local" news websites. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/these-fa...
There was another story on here just a little bit back about an East coast lady that had her article stolen by a paper she used to work for, that then returned, zombified, under the same name, yet with different bylines.
Similar to this article from Buzzfeed (2020) about pseudo-"local" news websites. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/these-fa...
> This story is really important, because it is essentially putting a community’s history at risk. To me, it feels like a harbinger of what we could see in the future re: domain purchases.
Huh? It's just a domain name. None of the history in none of the archives is going away.
Huh? It's just a domain name. None of the history in none of the archives is going away.
From the literal article:
> After all, the archive is our collective memoir, if we can keep it. No complete digital record seems to exist in any other one place — not the Santa Barbara Public Library, UC Riverside’s California Newspaper Project, the Library of Congress, Newspapers.com, or the like.
> After all, the archive is our collective memoir, if we can keep it. No complete digital record seems to exist in any other one place — not the Santa Barbara Public Library, UC Riverside’s California Newspaper Project, the Library of Congress, Newspapers.com, or the like.
That's seems like a straightforward thing to fix, if people care. And has nothing to do with who owns the domain name.
I chortled at the claim that deadspin is "beloved"
Among sports fans old Deadspin, specifically the previous iteration with columnists like Drew Magary, is pretty beloved.
Currently Defector is trying hard to occupy the gap left by it.
Currently Defector is trying hard to occupy the gap left by it.
"Beloved" doesn't necessarily mean good journalism. The type of rage-bait that includes trying to publicly shame a Native American child for painting his face in team colors and wearing a family headdress to a football game is likely to make you quite beloved among a certain crowd.
To be clear, the “beloved” era (while noting its subjectivity) is in reference to the pre-G/O Media era, which was run under a different editorial direction. That team has since moved to Defector.
The controversy you are referencing happened last fall, years after that team had left.
The controversy you are referencing happened last fall, years after that team had left.
Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for the information.
> The paper declared bankruptcy on July 21, 2023. In a fitting final insult, the court filing listed more than $116,000 in company assets — an implausibly low valuation — as it was revealed McCaw had previously shifted the real estate property of the newspaper’s historic De la Guerra Plaza headquarters and Goleta printing plant into private LLCs under her control
This is also a very standard play in the private equity field. The property (which is usually what they really wanted) is forked off to a different entity, and then that entity charges rent back to the original corp.
This is how they kill off assisted living homes. They don't bother with cost-cutting; they just keep jacking the "rent" the property-owning corp charges the assisted living facility entity. In desperation to keep the home for residents, the staff cut every cost they can. Cracks in care quickly appear, everyone who can leave does which means lots of lost cash flow and expenses split among fewer residents...at some point there's just no more squeezing possible, the corp misses a rent payment...and that's that.
It's also the classic plot for many stories; gang/army strong-arms a village and keeps asking for larger and larger takes of the village's crops, eventually leading to the villagers starving, etc.
This is also a very standard play in the private equity field. The property (which is usually what they really wanted) is forked off to a different entity, and then that entity charges rent back to the original corp.
This is how they kill off assisted living homes. They don't bother with cost-cutting; they just keep jacking the "rent" the property-owning corp charges the assisted living facility entity. In desperation to keep the home for residents, the staff cut every cost they can. Cracks in care quickly appear, everyone who can leave does which means lots of lost cash flow and expenses split among fewer residents...at some point there's just no more squeezing possible, the corp misses a rent payment...and that's that.
It's also the classic plot for many stories; gang/army strong-arms a village and keeps asking for larger and larger takes of the village's crops, eventually leading to the villagers starving, etc.
It's nuts that this is legal. This is seems so fraudulent to me: giving away your assets to an entity so you can rent them back from that entity.
For retirement communities, it's called "upstreaming".
Residents of the Hyatt Residences near Stanford litigated that and, after eight years, settled.[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi_Senior_Living#Litigation
[2] https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/02/19/residents-sue-palo-al...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi_Senior_Living#Litigation
[2] https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/02/19/residents-sue-palo-al...
Amusing for one reason.
If you're going to go after a retirement community, I can't think of a worst place. It's actually on Sand Hill Road. Talk about potentially connected people, and people with deep pockets, or whose friends may have deep pockets.
Burton Richter, 82, is among the affected residents. In 2005, the 1976 Nobel Laureate in Physics paid an entrance fee of roughly $1.59 million, 90 percent of which was supposed to be refundable.
Brilliant. Steal from millionaires and multimillionaires. No possible way they'd be able to hire lawyers. No way their friends and family could.
Well, hopefully this does indeed work as a usable judgement in other circumstances.
If you're going to go after a retirement community, I can't think of a worst place. It's actually on Sand Hill Road. Talk about potentially connected people, and people with deep pockets, or whose friends may have deep pockets.
Burton Richter, 82, is among the affected residents. In 2005, the 1976 Nobel Laureate in Physics paid an entrance fee of roughly $1.59 million, 90 percent of which was supposed to be refundable.
Brilliant. Steal from millionaires and multimillionaires. No possible way they'd be able to hire lawyers. No way their friends and family could.
Well, hopefully this does indeed work as a usable judgement in other circumstances.
The residents didn't win. They eventually settled, on terms worse than they were fighting for.
If that's the case, then it looks like legislation may be the only fix here.
Retirement communities are housing, and more of course. Yet housing is well protected, so whatever legislation protects such homes should be expanded it seems.
Retirement communities are housing, and more of course. Yet housing is well protected, so whatever legislation protects such homes should be expanded it seems.
Why wouldn’t it be legal? They own both corporations, and have all the rights in the world to dispose of the property as they see fit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm%27s_length_principle
There are a lot of the cases when the law requires arm's-length transactions, and those transactions definitely aren't arm's-length.
There are a lot of the cases when the law requires arm's-length transactions, and those transactions definitely aren't arm's-length.
There's quite a few reasons that could be illegal, especially if it's trying to avoid debt etc. Not saying that is the case here, but there is such a (very rampant) thing called corporate crime that could violate both the letter and the spirit of the law; the latter certainly warranting some investigation – if not a bit of outrage.
For the same reason why insider trading and price fixing is illegal: It's a scam to siphon money from others, and in doing so destabilizes the whole system.
If you don't protect against this sort of behavior, public confidence erodes and eventually the system collapses because nobody's actually producing anything; they're just scamming each other.
Once the rich own everything, your country's productivity and competitiveness falls through the floor (banana republic) because nobody doing the actual work has anything left to strive for other than subsistence.
If you don't protect against this sort of behavior, public confidence erodes and eventually the system collapses because nobody's actually producing anything; they're just scamming each other.
Once the rich own everything, your country's productivity and competitiveness falls through the floor (banana republic) because nobody doing the actual work has anything left to strive for other than subsistence.
Separating assets from liabilities, and cross-charging between related entities often seems to surprise those who don't own and run businesses. But it's basic business 101 which is pretty common everywhere.
Think of it this way. You build a business over 40 years, accumulating value along the way. You would be crazy to leave all that accumulated value in a high-risk entity (which a business naturally is.) So periodically the value is separated from the risk.
So, for example, a business owning the building is nuts. The building is a different asset class, and should be in its own structure. Any reasonable new owner who acquires a business and building in one bite will move to separate them.
This is not scammy or fraud, its the ways things are done and should be done by the original owner.
Think of it this way. You build a business over 40 years, accumulating value along the way. You would be crazy to leave all that accumulated value in a high-risk entity (which a business naturally is.) So periodically the value is separated from the risk.
So, for example, a business owning the building is nuts. The building is a different asset class, and should be in its own structure. Any reasonable new owner who acquires a business and building in one bite will move to separate them.
This is not scammy or fraud, its the ways things are done and should be done by the original owner.
"separating the value from the risk" is euphemism for removing all financial cushion and making sure the pain of any downturn is borne only by employees and customers, or it could even mean purposefully killing off what is considered to be a worthless business and an inefficient use of assets. It's usually done by monstrous new owners who have zero care for the people or community or legacy that they destroy. Their view of the world is only through maximizing financial calculations.
Progressives' general anti-business bias blinds them to the need to protect small to medium businesses from the true capitalist evils such as vulture capitalists. Things like rent control could be useful tools for protecting communities from the devastation that can be caused by financial engineering preying on real businesses.
Progressives' general anti-business bias blinds them to the need to protect small to medium businesses from the true capitalist evils such as vulture capitalists. Things like rent control could be useful tools for protecting communities from the devastation that can be caused by financial engineering preying on real businesses.
I agree that businesses that have unproductive assets become targets for PE takeover. Typically these are small businesses that have kept their assets and business together, without separating them. At some point the value of the asset exceeds the value of the business and it becomes ripe to be bought out, sold for parts, and closed.
Thus keeping them bound together makes things worse for employees and customers, not better.
Separating them makes it worse for creditors. Specifically creditors are less likely to institute bankruptcy if there are no juicy assets to liquidate. Most small businesses can survive a cash squeeze, at least for a short while, as long as creditors don't preemptively move to shut it down.
Equally, business owners are less tempted to over-extend if there is less "equity in the business". Obviously they can still borrow against the asset, but that's then a conscious decision.
Of course large companies know all this, and do it. Yhe way to protect small businesses from predatory buyouts or creditors is to educate small business owners.
Thus keeping them bound together makes things worse for employees and customers, not better.
Separating them makes it worse for creditors. Specifically creditors are less likely to institute bankruptcy if there are no juicy assets to liquidate. Most small businesses can survive a cash squeeze, at least for a short while, as long as creditors don't preemptively move to shut it down.
Equally, business owners are less tempted to over-extend if there is less "equity in the business". Obviously they can still borrow against the asset, but that's then a conscious decision.
Of course large companies know all this, and do it. Yhe way to protect small businesses from predatory buyouts or creditors is to educate small business owners.
[deleted]
> For the same reason why insider trading and price fixing is illegal: [...]
Insider trading isn't illegal everywhere, and it's not even illegal for the same reasons in different jurisdictions. (Specifically, I know that the reasons are different in eg France and the US.)
> If you don't protect against this sort of behavior, public confidence erodes and eventually the system collapses because nobody's actually producing anything; they're just scamming each other.
That would be easy to test: compare different market with different degrees and kinds of 'protection' against the ills you mention, and see how confidence differs. I doubt you'll find the kind of correlation you are asserting here. (But, of course, we need to watch out for correlation vs causation.)
You don't even need to look at different countries: even in the same country different assets are often traded under different rules. Eg equities vs bonds vs commodities vs commodity futures etc in the US.
Insider trading isn't illegal everywhere, and it's not even illegal for the same reasons in different jurisdictions. (Specifically, I know that the reasons are different in eg France and the US.)
> If you don't protect against this sort of behavior, public confidence erodes and eventually the system collapses because nobody's actually producing anything; they're just scamming each other.
That would be easy to test: compare different market with different degrees and kinds of 'protection' against the ills you mention, and see how confidence differs. I doubt you'll find the kind of correlation you are asserting here. (But, of course, we need to watch out for correlation vs causation.)
You don't even need to look at different countries: even in the same country different assets are often traded under different rules. Eg equities vs bonds vs commodities vs commodity futures etc in the US.
It may be illegal if the intent behind it is fraudulent.
"Legal", of course, seldom equals "moral", "ethical" or even "right".
In fact, "legal" often means "brazen thievery, but rich and entitled people doing it so that's okay".
In fact, "legal" often means "brazen thievery, but rich and entitled people doing it so that's okay".
They are doing this with hospitals also. Hospitals.
The large PE firms come in, buy the hospital and rent the land back to it. Eventually the hospital goes under.
This involves some of the biggest PE firms out there, and often MPT - "Medical Properties Trust".
"The plundering of America's hospitals":
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-wealthy-investors-got-ri...
The large PE firms come in, buy the hospital and rent the land back to it. Eventually the hospital goes under.
This involves some of the biggest PE firms out there, and often MPT - "Medical Properties Trust".
"The plundering of America's hospitals":
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-wealthy-investors-got-ri...
> It's also the classic plot for many stories;
And a more general trope: one idea that stuck with me from childhood TV was that badguys were always trying to drive people off their land. (Scooby Doo, A-Team, Airwolf, etc.)
But what TV also taught us kids was that, no matter what weapons the badguys bolted onto a trafficopter, the big black attack helicopter of justice would rain Hellfires down upon them.
Where are the Airwolves, BA Baracuses, and Mystery Teams that we were promised?
And a more general trope: one idea that stuck with me from childhood TV was that badguys were always trying to drive people off their land. (Scooby Doo, A-Team, Airwolf, etc.)
But what TV also taught us kids was that, no matter what weapons the badguys bolted onto a trafficopter, the big black attack helicopter of justice would rain Hellfires down upon them.
Where are the Airwolves, BA Baracuses, and Mystery Teams that we were promised?
Yikes man do MBA types and PE just wake up and think of evil fucked up ways to make money?
My dad works at a company run by PE monkeys who are some of the most evil mfs. My dad is a smart guy but he’s an immigrant and he says he can think but he can’t talk. It’s unfortunate but it pisses me off how badly they treat him and others.
My dad works at a company run by PE monkeys who are some of the most evil mfs. My dad is a smart guy but he’s an immigrant and he says he can think but he can’t talk. It’s unfortunate but it pisses me off how badly they treat him and others.
> The property (which is usually what they really wanted) is forked off to a different entity, and then that entity charges rent back to the original corp.
The IRS treats the owner’s basis in an entity differently based on being a business or passive activity. Included in basis for a passive investment is both recourse and nonrecourse debt, while the basis in a business such as a newspaper takes into account the recourse debt.
If the business and passive activity are not separated, then if the owners refinance the asset with non recourse debt and distribute additional proceeds, it is a capital gain since the non recourse debt does not increase each partner’s basis.
However, if you separate the business activity and passive activity, then the partners can include all the non recourse debt in their basis, and any distribution from refinancing would not be taxable.
This is why you typically want your real estate to be a separate entity collecting rent from the entity operating the business.
The IRS treats the owner’s basis in an entity differently based on being a business or passive activity. Included in basis for a passive investment is both recourse and nonrecourse debt, while the basis in a business such as a newspaper takes into account the recourse debt.
If the business and passive activity are not separated, then if the owners refinance the asset with non recourse debt and distribute additional proceeds, it is a capital gain since the non recourse debt does not increase each partner’s basis.
However, if you separate the business activity and passive activity, then the partners can include all the non recourse debt in their basis, and any distribution from refinancing would not be taxable.
This is why you typically want your real estate to be a separate entity collecting rent from the entity operating the business.
Perhaps most disturbing of all, in just the past year, an industry trend appears to have kicked off in which a subset of SEO companies has begun to acquire the domain names and historical digital content archives of defunct small-town American newspapers for the express purpose of turning them into highly profitable backlink farms.
Does anyone think that these backlink farms will have much value 2 or 3 years from now?
This is not just about the role of AI providing better search results or answers to typical queries. It's also the longstanding decline in relevance of Google search queries gummed up with ads and SEO-optimized junk.
Does anyone think that these backlink farms will have much value 2 or 3 years from now?
This is not just about the role of AI providing better search results or answers to typical queries. It's also the longstanding decline in relevance of Google search queries gummed up with ads and SEO-optimized junk.
I thought Google's blogspam was going to be defeated roughly 2010 and invested my entire networth into a legitimate website to take out my niche.
It didn't work-- blogspam destroyed my app in traffic 5:1. My main blogspam competitor literally still gets hacked every other day but after all this time is still #1 on google. He posts on twitter in broken English that he doesn't understand why ISPs are blocking him, but it doesn't matter. The backlinks he bought back when he started launched him sky high, he even got a few legit links now from NYT, LATimes etc, despite being the ugliest blogspam you've ever seen.
I wouldn't expect Google to fix anything, these spammers already made their fortunes. Check out r/seo sometime and look at some of the accounts that post there. These people can't put together complete sentences but were dominating Google for a decade. This last March update was -finally- a step in the right direction.
It didn't work-- blogspam destroyed my app in traffic 5:1. My main blogspam competitor literally still gets hacked every other day but after all this time is still #1 on google. He posts on twitter in broken English that he doesn't understand why ISPs are blocking him, but it doesn't matter. The backlinks he bought back when he started launched him sky high, he even got a few legit links now from NYT, LATimes etc, despite being the ugliest blogspam you've ever seen.
I wouldn't expect Google to fix anything, these spammers already made their fortunes. Check out r/seo sometime and look at some of the accounts that post there. These people can't put together complete sentences but were dominating Google for a decade. This last March update was -finally- a step in the right direction.
I sympathize with your plight, and I see blogspam as theft.
> These people can’t put together complete sentences but were dominating Google for a decade.
But it is a mistake to confuse poor English with lack of intelligence or ability.
> These people can’t put together complete sentences but were dominating Google for a decade.
But it is a mistake to confuse poor English with lack of intelligence or ability.
I would never make the claim that English ability = intelligence, but you definitely shouldn't be dominating the search results for English-speaking audiences.
No escriblo para papel de espanol porque my idoima esta basura!
No escriblo para papel de espanol porque my idoima esta basura!
Indeed, if someone is succeeding despite the barriers of their ad-hoc, idiosyncratic, ESL then it might signal that they are really good at something. Note that the something could be appearing very successful in-spite of broken english.
Money is money, and if the cost of making a million dollars is $250K and incinerating a town's entire historical record, apparently that's a fine price for some people.
Throw this on the heap of systemic ethical transgressions of the advertising industry, along with list selling, poor targeting practices, ...
Throw this on the heap of systemic ethical transgressions of the advertising industry, along with list selling, poor targeting practices, ...
It's grotesque that this is not even the direct effect of the advertising industry, it is the side effect of Google's algo to sort results.
Being ranked higher in the Goog results is sadly worth more than a town's historical records.
I wonder if things were different if Google wasn't allowed to monopolize search.
Being ranked higher in the Goog results is sadly worth more than a town's historical records.
I wonder if things were different if Google wasn't allowed to monopolize search.
We face dozens of material problems that could be solved if the advertising industry had even a sprinkle of shame. Imagine the world we'd live in if list buying and backlink buying were taboo.
Doesn’t really matter. The people behind this aren’t interested in anything beyond quick dollars
I can't help but feel surpassing $250,000.00 at auction is no big deal for a city with ~88,000 residents, in this age of crowdfunding and otherwise asking for donations the old fashioned way.
So this is less a question of whether the residents can pay, but rather whether the residents value this archive at all.
So this is less a question of whether the residents can pay, but rather whether the residents value this archive at all.
We'll find out a week from Tuesday.
A last chance to win the day will take place at 2 p.m. on April 9 in room 201 of the United States Bankruptcy Court, 1415 State Street, Santa Barbara. There, a live auction will occur whereby the current price of $250,000 may be bested only by in-person bidding.Not to mention this is Santa Barbara which has a lot of monied residents.
Correct. I think the idea of this article is to raise awareness so the local residents can pony up the cash to save the website.
Not really, who said the residents are the only potential bidders? Public or private museums or collectors might be interested.
1868-1990s covers almost the entire history of California as a state, the photos alone shoule be interesting.
In the silent film era 1910-1922, Santa Barbara housed the then world's largest movie studio (Flying A Studios) until it outgrew the town and moved to Hollywood. Those years should be quite interesting.
1868-1990s covers almost the entire history of California as a state, the photos alone shoule be interesting.
In the silent film era 1910-1922, Santa Barbara housed the then world's largest movie studio (Flying A Studios) until it outgrew the town and moved to Hollywood. Those years should be quite interesting.
What parts of this problem aren't solved by archive.org?
Part of the problem is the potential loss of public value in the form of the undigitized archive, and archive.org provides no solution for that.
Now, is it the responsibility of organization X or person Y to preserve this value? I’m not sure, but that seems to be a separate (albeit also interesting) question.
Now, is it the responsibility of organization X or person Y to preserve this value? I’m not sure, but that seems to be a separate (albeit also interesting) question.
Archive.org is great but they dont have the name recognition or SEO ranking to compete with the original site. Normies don’t know to look there.
This seems to be a problem (among others in this story) which Google could answer to.
One thought that comes to mind is that no site's reputation should automatically survive transfer of ownership of that site.
If a site's new owners share the mission and custodial mission of the original owners, fine. If not, the site starts from zilch. Or better: negative assertion value given the long history of link-farming and its exceedingly well-understood common weal costs.
One thought that comes to mind is that no site's reputation should automatically survive transfer of ownership of that site.
If a site's new owners share the mission and custodial mission of the original owners, fine. If not, the site starts from zilch. Or better: negative assertion value given the long history of link-farming and its exceedingly well-understood common weal costs.
So now we moved the goal post from preserving the communities memory to beating other companies at SEO?
[deleted]
We shouldn’t rely on the Internet Archive when we don’t have to. It is a nonprofit that has faced significant legal challenges in recent years, and it has many other priorities. It’s a backup in case of disaster and a historical record, not a replacement. I love it and its value is immaculate, but it is asking too much of it to clean up every mess like this.
There’s also the print archives, which are not available online.
There’s also the print archives, which are not available online.
Then that's an issue for the Library of Congress or whoever. It's completely unreasonable to expect any private business to somehow maintain a record of their archives ad infinitum especially if they're no longer in business and there aren't any employees. Certainly non-journalistic corporate records of all sorts die with the company unless someone else has kept and shared a copy.
There’s a concept called corporate responsibility, and this fits neatly into it. It is irresponsible if you deal in information as a business and you do not have a plan to protect what you’re building long-term.
It’s kind of what you signed up for when you started running a newspaper or news website.
It’s kind of what you signed up for when you started running a newspaper or news website.
>It’s kind of what you signed up for when you started running a newspaper or news website.
No. I didn't actually. I probably signed up to produce (hopefully) quality journalism. But I didn't sign up to be an archive for the ages. And I'm not sure how I would even do so after I'm no longer there and have no revenues or employees. I can donate paper copies to the local library but that's basically just kicking the can down the road given that local libraries don't have infinite resources or space to maintain collections and, in fact, routinely sell off books that aren't checked out.
No. I didn't actually. I probably signed up to produce (hopefully) quality journalism. But I didn't sign up to be an archive for the ages. And I'm not sure how I would even do so after I'm no longer there and have no revenues or employees. I can donate paper copies to the local library but that's basically just kicking the can down the road given that local libraries don't have infinite resources or space to maintain collections and, in fact, routinely sell off books that aren't checked out.
The British Library is having a few problems with their computers right now, but for the UK they are intended to be the people who have arbitrarily large resources and space to maintain their collection. The theory is that they are entitled to be given a copy of everything ever published in the UK, print and digital.
In the US, you only send a physical copy to the LoC if you're registering a copyright so you can collect damages in the case of a copyright infringement. Not sure how common that is outside of maybe major publishers.
Then you’re an irresponsible newspaper owner. You exist to serve the community, and your community isn’t served if you decide one day to force someone else to clean up the archives. That’s your job, revenue or no.
Hey i worked there for several years during the wendy drama. glad to see people are interested in this sb treasure
A lot more people would be interested in bidding for a domain name than for a company that owns a domain name.
The domain name should be auctioned off separately but the bankruptcy court is more interested in completing the task in the easiest way possible for them instead of doing things right.
The domain name should be auctioned off separately but the bankruptcy court is more interested in completing the task in the easiest way possible for them instead of doing things right.
It’s a shame these former voices don’t band together more often and just try and run a cheap to host site covering the same local topics. You don’t need to sustain the overhead to print and circulate or even rent an office anymore. I’d pay for that, I’m sure I’m not the only one either.
There are other local, online-only news sources which now involve some of the previous Santa Barbara News-Press staff.
https://www.independent.com
https://www.edhat.com
https://www.noozhawk.com
https://www.montecitojournal.net
etc.
https://www.independent.com
https://www.edhat.com
https://www.noozhawk.com
https://www.montecitojournal.net
etc.
Edhat is a long running local site.
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is it possible to work with archive.org to mirror the last version of the site?
For me, the real story here is not about losing some newspaper archives. The real story here is to show how broken the system is right now. Is this even a human society anymore? Where SEO link farms and AI-generated junk replace local community history, where prime real estate is gutted by private equity firms, and all of this is done through shadowy foreign-registered businesses that have no stake in your collective well-being. And there are some who defend this as capitalism. The market decided what is worth keeping, they said. Except "the market" isn't human, and what it has decided to keep isn't something I, as a human, want to be a part of.
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Ansaben10(1)
THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!
SOMEONE SHOULD KEEP AN ARCHIVE OF OUR PRECIOUS CULTURAL HERITAGE.
They could even keep in on the internet!
We could call it the "Internet Archive"
And with this amazing technology, there could even be a way we could go way back and look at things that were published before, right on the internet as well.
We could call it the "wayback machine"
Oh wait: http://web.archive.org/web/20220322003618/https://newspress....
Seriously though, three out of four times when I see someone crying "but our precious cultural heritage" it's something that has already been taken care of by archive.org, or that it would be trivial to have them help out with, instead of trying to force the hand of some corporate giant.
Did you know that archive.org even has a special legal exemption to ignore copyright law for archiving software?
SOMEONE SHOULD KEEP AN ARCHIVE OF OUR PRECIOUS CULTURAL HERITAGE.
They could even keep in on the internet!
We could call it the "Internet Archive"
And with this amazing technology, there could even be a way we could go way back and look at things that were published before, right on the internet as well.
We could call it the "wayback machine"
Oh wait: http://web.archive.org/web/20220322003618/https://newspress....
Seriously though, three out of four times when I see someone crying "but our precious cultural heritage" it's something that has already been taken care of by archive.org, or that it would be trivial to have them help out with, instead of trying to force the hand of some corporate giant.
Did you know that archive.org even has a special legal exemption to ignore copyright law for archiving software?
Relying on an underfunded nonprofit to protect information incompletely is never going to be as good as having access to the original information source. I could point to many reasons for this, but let me start with just one: The internet has been around as a mainstream entity for just 30 years. The newspaper has 155 years of archives. Those archives have not been put on a number of vintage newspaper archive sites, making this information impossible to access.
Have you ever dealt with newspaper archives? Morgues of old content? They are often complex to manage and digitize. The Internet Archive, being asked to manage the literal history of the internet, has a massive backlog. It would be significantly better if someone who actually was up close and had an organizational interest in managing it could do it instead, because that makes the lift far easier to deal with.
The Internet Archive is an important tool, but it is not the silver bullet you think it is. It is not a set-it-and-forget-it tool. It is the recovery option of last resort, and it puts a lot of pressure on the organization to treat them as a simple replacement for content that should just be online. Any researcher worth their salt will tell you that.
Have you ever dealt with newspaper archives? Morgues of old content? They are often complex to manage and digitize. The Internet Archive, being asked to manage the literal history of the internet, has a massive backlog. It would be significantly better if someone who actually was up close and had an organizational interest in managing it could do it instead, because that makes the lift far easier to deal with.
The Internet Archive is an important tool, but it is not the silver bullet you think it is. It is not a set-it-and-forget-it tool. It is the recovery option of last resort, and it puts a lot of pressure on the organization to treat them as a simple replacement for content that should just be online. Any researcher worth their salt will tell you that.
Is the Malta-based company vehemently against giving archivists access to the newspaper's archives? I can't imagine they would have any good use for it.
> Is the Malta-based company vehemently against giving archivists access to the newspaper's archives? I can't imagine they would have any good use for it.
Holding it for ransom is one "good" use for it.
Holding it for ransom is one "good" use for it.
Given their track record, I honestly imagine they just don’t care. See what they did with Gambling Times to get an idea of how they treat a publication with a deep archive.
Eventually, it led to a story in 404 Media that tied specific names to the purchase and highlighted some of their M.O.: https://www.404media.co/who-owns-deadspin-now-lineup-publish...
It turns out that one of the key figures in the Deadspin purchase is also attempting to buy a bankrupt newspaper’s website, likely because the domain (NewsPress.com) has a lot of SEO value. That’s what the above story is about.
This story is really important, because it is essentially putting a community’s history at risk. To me, it feels like a harbinger of what we could see in the future re: domain purchases.