Wendy P. McCaw

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Wendy P. McCaw is the multi-millionaire owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press. She is also known as an animal rights activist. McCaw has been the center of controversy since July 2006 over her management decisions involving the News-Press, an award-winning paper and one of the oldest daily publications in California.

Born Wendy Petrak in Redwood City, California in 1952, she met Craig McCaw, the son of a wealthy Seattle media owner, at Stanford University where they both were sophomores majoring in History. They married in 1974 a year after graduation. During their marriage they grew McCaw Communications into McCaw Cellular, eventually selling to AT&T for $12.6 billion in 1994. In September 1995 Craig filed for divorce. The tumultuous divorce proceedings lasted until October 1997 when Wendy was granted stock worth $500 million at the time. The divorce settlement was the largest in Washington State history and one of the largest ever in the United States. During the divorce, Craig granted Wendy their $9 million house in Santa Barbara.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]

Mrs. McCaw and her former husband, who was also a cellular phone pioneer, gave millions in donations in the 1990s to help return Keiko, the orca star of "Free Willy," to the wild.^[5] In her editorials in the News-Press, Mrs. McCaw is a staunch defender of animal rights, arguing against whaling operations and a federally funded hunt to kill feral pigs on the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. Her defense of animals while also opposing an ordinance to increase the minimum wage for city workers has led to some criticism. Soon after her purchase of the paper, an editorial called for an end to the Thanksgiving tradition of eating turkey, because of the suffering of the "unwilling participants."^[6]

[edit] News-Press Controversy

Further information: Santa Barbara News-Press controversy

As owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press, McCaw has been criticized for her actions in the newsroom. Union activists have displayed signs reading "McCaw Obey the Law" in reference to her potentially illegal firing of employees but was referencing her legal confrontations with the California Coastal Commission against whom she had mounted a legal challenge to block the public's use of a 500-foot strip of beach below her 25 acre Hope Ranch estate.

In 2008, filmmaker Sam Tyler released a documentary called "Citizen McCaw". The 85-minute documentary focuses on the News-Press Controversy and its premiere in Santa Barbara drew 2,200 viewers.^[7]