Ever since the meltdown at the Santa Barbara News-Press over two years ago, editorial page editor Travis Armstrong has done little to hide his disdain for the major newspaper to the south of us, the Ventura County Star.
The Star first made the News-Press "enemies list" back on September 24, 2006, when Armstrong, miffed that the Star had made the News-Press the subject of one of their editorials, made the Star the subject of one of his op-ed pieces.
Armstrong at the time claimed to be surprised that people read the Star's editorials.
How sincere he was in his surprise is open to question, but there can be no doubt that the editors at the News-Press are now reading the Star with some regularity.
How else can you explain the fact that two recent Life section stories that recently ran in the News-Press actually first appeared in the Star?
Sunday's feature story that appeared in the News-Press Life section about 13 Ventura county women who went in together to purchase a $37,000 necklace, first appeared in the Ventura County Star back on September 7th.And a September 11th article about the husband and wife team of James Carling and Manuela Zaretti-Carling, Ventura based purveyors of limoncello, the sweet lemon liqueur, appeared in the Star several months earlier on July 10th.
In each case, News-Press reporters wrote articles on the same people and subjects that the Star's reporters had covered.
Well, Wendy McCaw did promise us "the best coverage of local news to be had." Little did we know that the local news would be from Ventura, and from the Star no less.
