Wendy P. McCaw

Wendy McCaw is the owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press.

She was born Wendy Petrak in Redwood City, California in 1952. She attended Stanford University where she majored in history and met Craig McCaw during their sophomore year. They married in 1974 a year after graduation. During their marriage they grew McCaw Communications into McCaw Cellular, eventually selling to AT&T in 1994. They divorced several years later.

In 2000, Wendy McCaw purchased the Santa Barbara News-Press, one of California's oldest newspapers, from the New York Times. A defender of animal rights, Wendy McCaw gave millions in donations in the 1990s to help return Keiko, the orca star of "Free Willy," to the wild. [ [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/whales/interviews/mccaw1.html "A Whale of a Business", PBS Frontline, Nov. 11, 1997] ] 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.

In recognition of her work, Ms. McCaw has been the recipient of several awards including the 2004 Michael Douglas Philanthropist of the Year Award and in 2005 the Humane Society of the United States honored her at the Genesis Awards for "Outstanding Newspaper Editorials," citing "an unrivaled collection of 44 insightful, timely and reasoned editorials, exploring an array of significant animal issues in need of public attention and effecting change in the process."

Ms. McCaw currently resides in Santa Barbara with her fiance, Arthur von Wiesenberger, their cat and two donkeys.

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. [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/19/IN25105TDK.DTL A Fight for Journalism Values in California] ]

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