Santa Barbara Parking
Gawker reported last night that the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors will charge media $250/day to park close to the courthouse while covering the Michael Jackson trial.

I was pretty puzzled about this considering I lived in Santa Barbara for four years and actually had the pleasure of being married at the SB Courthouse not quite three years ago. Then I got around to reading the fine print. The proceedings are actually in little Santa Maria, not Santa Barbara.

The Santa Maria Times has the story on parking, and rightly points out that the charge will screw the local media (such as KEYT) who can't so easily absorb $250/day when they're competing with the network big-rigs and correspondents who sometimes get chartered planes for big news events.

So as I was looking at the regional papers online, I noticed that an awful lot of them have really annoying registration policies. Here's the quick list:

Santa Barbara News Press - today's short headlines are free; $2.50 per story

LA Times, - free (but annoying) registration gives access to most daily content

Santa Maria Times - free!

Ventura County Star - free registration required w/ legit e-mail address

South Coast Beacon - free weekly, but no archives at all

San Luis Obispo Tribune - free

Santa Barbara Independent - free weekly's free briefs

UCSB Daily Nexus - free, but will they cover the trial?

LA Daily News - free but will they only use AP for the trial?
- posted by Amy @ 1/14/2004 11:23:00 AM