The Santa Barbara News-Press has been a pivotal part of the community’s history since 1868, documenting births, weddings, obituaries, and everything in between until its recent bankruptcy. The controversial ownership by billionaire Wendy McCaw led to a scandalous series of events, resulting in bankruptcy and potential loss of the digital archive to a mysterious foreign buyer associated with backlink farming. The sale of the online assets in an upcoming auction raises concerns about the fate of the community’s collective memory. The article urges community members to step forward to save the decades of stories before they are lost forever.
https://www.independent.com/2024/03/29/santa-barbaras-collective-memory-sold-for-kindling/