On the one-year anniversary of the News-Press mess, we need your help now more than ever.

Wendy McCaw, the owner and co-publisher, has forced out or fired nearly 50 journalists from her newsroom since July 6, 2006, when five top editors and Barney Brantingham, a longtime columnist, resigned in protest.

McCaw broke federal law by firing us reporters for unionizing the newsroom. She has used her front page to smear Jerry Roberts, our former editor and a top professional in the field. She’s relied on lawsuits and “cease and desist” letters to answer her critics.

The damage done could take years to repair. But we do not subscribe to the belief, sometimes heard around town, that McCaw’s millions make her invincible. There is a serious campaign underway to reclaim the News-Press for good journalism, and we believe that in the end, McCaw will have to back off.

For the past three months, we have been trying to provide quality local journalism daily online. Now we are at a real crossroads. We must raise enough money to keep our site going for a year or more, until McCaw has exhausted her appeals and we are reinstated at the News-Press.

We have been able to survive this far on donations while looking for jobs. Without your continued help, we will have to shut down SantaBarbaraNewsroom.com this month.

Please help us stand up to a publisher who attacks her newsroom and thumbs her nose at federal labor law, all the while suppressing news of her own unfolding scandal.

During the past year, thousands of former News-Press readers have cancelled their subscriptions to a paper that once had a reputation for quality journalism, the kind that tells the truth “without fear or favor to friend or foe.” Many advertisers have withdrawn their business. Other media — local, state and national — have told the story of McCaw’s atrocious management, sounding the warning of what happens when a publisher runs amok.

This should be a hot summer for McCaw after she returns from her annual Mediterranean cruise. We expect a ruling any day in our favor regarding our 33-6 vote in the newsroom to join the Teamsters. McCaw’s frivolous challenge of our union election last September will finally run its course, and she will have to start negotiating with us for a fair employment contract, one that sets in writing the ethical standards that every honest publisher observes.

From Aug. 14 to Sept. 14, the News-Press will go on trial in Santa Barbara on 15 charges of violations of federal labor law. These include our firings; the company’s videotaping of our rallies; McCaw’s denial of annual bonuses to union supporters; and the disruption of a union meeting by one of McCaw’s lawyers. We will be represented at the hearings by federal lawyers for the National Labor Relations Board, and we expect to win our case.

You may ask, why would anyone want to return to a newspaper so sadly discredited? Why would anyone want to work for a publisher whose views on workers’ rights and the role of the free press hearken back to the strongarm tactics of William Hearst?

Our answer is this: We would return to the News-Press to fight for a Teamster contract in Wendy McCaw's newsroom. No owner has the right to treat her workers as she has. And no publisher, no matter how wealthy, should distort the news in her newspaper to conform to her views.

If you believe in a free press and workers’ rights, please support us in our efforts to continue reporting the news online at SantaBarbaraNewsroom.com. Don’t let McCaw “starve us out.” We are committed to reporting for our own community and keeping the pressure on McCaw.

Please consider making a generous donation to keep SantaBarbaraNewsroom.com alive. You can send a check to the Santa Barbara Union Defense Fund, P.O. Box 30041, Santa Barbara, CA 93130. The Teamsters will forward every penny to us. Please note that your donations are not tax-deductible. Thank you very much for your help. Together, we will prevail.

The staff of SantaBarbaraNewsroom.com