A few days after six of its top editors and one prominent columnist resigned in protest, four new editors have been selected as replacements at the Santa Barbara News-Press.

Announced yesterday, the appointments fill the positions of deputy managing editor, city editor, interim sports editor and contributing business editor. With one exception, the hiring was done from within the News-Press office.

Unlike hundreds of newspapers, television and radio stations around the world, neither yesterday’s press release nor the pages of the News-Press have reported what a few of its former and current employees say actually occurred. An article prepared by a News-Press staff writer detailing the reasons behind the resignations and the official response from upper management and ownership was not printed.

According to a current News-Press employee who asked not to be named, the effects of the controversy at the newspaper have kept the atmosphere in the office stressful and its employees on edge.

“It’s surreal and — how can I describe it — it’s like this heavy, thick tension in the air and you’re just waiting for the next ball to drop…” the employee said. “Everyday that we’ve been in there since Don Murphy resigned — it’s been like that everyday, just tension.”

The employee said several writers have yet to decide whether they would stay or leave.

“A lot of emotions are running high, and there are a few people in the newsroom who are teetering on resigning or staying,” the employee said. “It’s hour to hour with the way they feel, including myself. And now as far as any top people resigning, there’s no top people left.”

On Monday, and unidentified individual laid a wreath with the letters “R.I.P.” written on top at the doorstep of the newspaper’s office in downtown Santa Barbara. The wreath was soon carted away.

Besides the shock some community members feel about the situation are feelings of anger and frustration with what they say is the decline of an important institution. According to the blog Blogabarbara — http://blogabarbara.blogspot.com/ — a rally to protest the recent actions of the paper’s owners will be held across the street from the News-Press office in De La Guerra Plaza on July 18. The News-Press office is located at 715 Anacapa St., adjacent to the plaza where the protest will be held.

Currently, there is no estimate for how many plan to attend the rally, nor has the organizer identified himself or herself.

“Everyone who cares about credibility and believability for what should be the local ‘News of Record’ should come to the half-hour rally at noon on Tuesday, July 18th,” the anonymous organizer wrote on the blog.

News-Press spokesperson Sam Singer, who is based in San Francisco, said readers had the right to disagree with the paper’s new direction.

“Just as there is freedom of the press there is freedom and right to assembly,” Singer said.

Since Thursday, he said, about 100 people had cancelled their subscriptions to the newspaper that has a circulation of roughly 41,000. He said the number was not atypical of the business flow at a newspaper.

Singer said the resignations resulted from a disagreement between the editors and the ownership on the purpose of the paper. He said McCaw would like to see more local news in the News-Press. In the note to News-Press readers printed the day after the resignations, Acting Publisher Travis Armstrong wrote that a difference of “opinion as to direction, goals and vision” caused the abrupt departure.

Recently resigned Business Editor Michael Todd vehemently disagreed with Singer and Armstrong’s claim. Interviews with other former and current News-Press staffers as well as the held article also conflict with the official reason.

“That is so categorically and absolutely and irretrievably wrong,” Todd said of Singer’s statement. “It is a falsehood, absolute falsehood. It’s peculiar in the extreme that five local editors would oppose more local news.”

The unprinted News-Press article about the resignations, which was obtained by the Daily Nexus and checked for accuracy and authenticity, describes an emotional departure of five of the editors and columnist Barney Brantingham last Thursday. According to the held article as well as several interviews confirming it, reporters and copyreaders surrounded Executive Editor Jerry Roberts as he was led to the door by Armstrong — the former editorial page editor who was promoted two weeks ago.

“It was hard to say goodbye to a lot of people,” Roberts said yesterday in an interview on campus radio station KCSB. “And then when they continued to try and hurry me out, several reporters shouted obscenities at the acting publisher — and then I left.”

According to the held article, one News-Press staffer shouted, “[Expletive] you, Travis, haven’t you done enough?”

Those who have left the News-Press, as well as some still working at the 151-year-old daily newspaper, say the resignations came as a result of inappropriate meddling on the part of the owner — local billionaire Wendy McCaw — and Armstrong in the news section.

In the held article, Roberts and Todd mentioned several examples of this violation of standard newsroom ethics, including the decision by upper management not to print a second story about Armstrong’s arrest for drunk driving, the reprimanding of three editors and a reporter for printing actor Rob Lowe’s address, and Armstrong’s promotion to publisher. Todd said — and Roberts agreed during his interview — that along with his responsibility over the business side of the paper, Armstrong has been given complete authority to change news articles as he sees fit.

“The job of the newsroom is not to maximize profit,” Roberts said. “You can look at almost any industry in America and it’s hard to find some place where your job is not to maximize profit. Your job is to tell the truth, and to tell the truth independently of any influences that are involved in the profit-making operation of the newspaper.”

Besides Roberts, Todd and Brantingham, last week’s resignations include Metro Editor Jane Hulse, Managing Editor George Foulsham, Deputy Managing Editor Don Murphy and Sports Editor Gerry Spratt.

Although he was suspended on what he calls “trumped up charges” when the incident occurred, Todd said that, for him, the final straw happened last week when Armstrong told a reporter to slant a news article to a certain angle. The article was about a Carpenteria city councilwoman who was resigning after 16 years. He said Armstrong told the writer to focus on two issues his editorials had previously attacked the councilwoman for.

“That was absolutely anathema to us,” Todd said. “That was beyond the pale at that point.”

In an interview with him yesterday, Todd went into further detail about a recent policy change at the newspaper that involved actor Rob Lowe. Lowe recently gained approval from the Montecito Planning Commission to build a large mansion in its community, despite some controversy over whether it would block his neighbor’s view, or whether the house was too large for the neighborhood.

In the June 22 News-Press article about the approved plan, Todd said, the reporter included Lowe’s address — a piece of information that had been open to the public and had been stated by Lowe at the public commission meeting. Todd said he and fellow editors Hulse and Foulsham as well as the reporter for the story received reprimands in their personnel file for printing Lowe’s address, although providing such information was not previously against policy.

Under a new policy, Todd said, reporters may not print addresses without the resident’s consent.

Todd said Armstrong, who was the editorial page editor at the time and not yet acting publisher, sent the reprimands because he had been contacted by Lowe, or a representative from the actor. Todd said Lowe was angry that his address had been printed, and demanded action be taken.

“I didn’t feel we should create another class of human being that had superior rights to everybody else,” Todd said of Lowe’s complaint.

Todd said he sent an email to McCaw through the Human Resources Dept. complaining about the new policy on addresses, and was immediately suspended on “trumped-up” charges relating to an incident that happened seven weeks prior.

He said he had made a joke to a fellow coworker along the lines of, “Hey, I saw you in front of a place. I was going to swerve over and hit you, but you were with two other people.” Todd said his coworker was offended by the joke and complained to Human Resources. Todd said his supervisor spoke with him over the matter, and the issue seemed copasetic after that.

But three hours after he sent the email, the issue came up again, he said, and he was escorted from the building that day. Todd said he was told the case was under investigation. Todd said he thought this explanation was an excuse to punish him for speaking up.

“If I were genuinely perceived as a threat, then it was their responsibility to escort me out immediately,” he said. “If you really, really think that, why was I allowed to work seven weeks after the fact? But three hours after I turn something in critical of management I was escorted out.”

Todd said those who resigned did so as a “principled stand” against the various conflicts of interest and erosion of journalist integrity at the newspaper. Under its current ownership, Todd said he didn’t believe the News-Press could recover.

“I don’t think this is terminal,” he said. “I think they’re driving it into the ground, but I don’t think they have to. And I think the News-Press as an institution can be revived to an extent.”

In his radio interview, Roberts also said standard journalistic practices were no longer a priority for the upper echelons of the paper.

“I just resigned from the newspaper because I felt that the values and standards and ethics that I have been taught and have learned and have followed in 32 years in the newspaper business were no longer in place in my place of employment,” Roberts said. “I left very, very sadly — and regretfully so — but I didn’t feel I had an alternative because I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror.”