A tiff over editorial independence has grown into a full rebellion at the Santa Barbara News-Press in California.

Some excerpts from the NYT story:

Staffers have been marching out the door, accusing her of interfering with their editorial independence. When she published her explanation of the departures as an expression of bias in the reporting staff on Thursday, even more quit. On Friday, her staff — or what remained of it — held a rally outside the newspaper building, where some 30 reporters and editors, dressed in black, put duct tape over their mouths, to represent the owner’s gag order issued last week.

Throughout, Mrs. McCaw, who acquired the paper in 2000, has been absent, away in Europe and communicating mainly through her deputy, the acting publisher and opinion page editor, Travis Armstrong.

In her first interview about the resignations, she said on Sunday that the fault was with those who had left.

“This is not a freedom of the press issue, or of intimidation of the newsroom,” she said. “There were personality differences in the newsroom, and the people who didn’t want to be there are not there any longer.”

At a time when the future of newspapers is being challenged by the Internet, and as newspapers around the country — large and small — debate the merits of private versus corporate ownership, The News-Press is an example of what can happen when an active, committed local owner determines to steer her own path. ...

When Mrs. McCaw offered Mr. (Jerry) Roberts the top editing job, “she said she wanted to be a strong, local paper,” he recalled over breakfast at the quiet El Encanto hotel, the same place he first met with her about taking the position. “I thought that was a great vision. The fact that she would be a single, local, independent owner, I thought was a great advantage. And for a long time, it was.”

But in 2004, editors rankled at instances when Mrs. McCaw asked for special news consideration of pet subjects, such as litigation she won against an architect, or more prominent placement of reviews by her fiancé, Arthur Von Wiesenberger, then the newspaper’s restaurant critic.

Relations deteriorated between Mrs. McCaw and Mr. Roberts, and she stopped speaking to him after the fall of 2004, he said, communicating when necessary through her fiancé.

In early 2005 when Joe Cole, Mrs. McCaw’s lawyer, became the publisher, things settled down. Mr. Cole resigned in April of this year for undisclosed reasons, and Mrs. McCaw and Mr. Von Wiesenberger became co-publishers.

The conflict over the division between editorial opinion and news-gathering arose anew when Mr. Armstrong was arrested in May for drunken driving. The newspaper ran a news article on Page 3, which Mr. Armstrong considered a sign of a personal vendetta against him by Mr. Roberts. Mrs. McCaw said she agreed that the prominence of the article reflected a vendetta.

Mr. Roberts denied that, saying the paper could not favor its own employees, especially a high-profile figure like Mr. Armstrong. “It wasn’t a close call,” he said. “He’s a public figure in this town, and a lightning rod.” ...

Then on Monday, July 3, Mr. Armstrong was appointed acting publisher, whose duties would now include overseeing the news coverage. “That was untenable for me,” said Mr. Roberts. “The whole church-state thing going on was now resolved, in favor of the church.” Mr. Roberts and five other top editors resigned, along with Barney Brantingham, a longtime columnist who had worked there for 46 years. ...

At Friday’s vigil, a couple of hundred supporters chanted, “Shame!” as Mr. Armstrong looked down from the Mission-style newspaper tower. Mr. Brantingham, speaking before the crowd, openly wept. “I can’t stand it,” he said. “I love that paper. It’s hurt me so much. And it didn’t have to happen.”