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 around 1951, she met Craig McCaw, the son of a wealthy Seattle media owner, at Stanford University where they both majored in History. They married in 1974. The couples' tumultuous divorce in the mid-1990s gained McCaw her fortune.[1][2][3]
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. 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."
[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.
