For a long time, the mantra among journalists was that newspaper chains were bad for journalism. But Jerry Roberts, who worked at the San Francisco Chronicle for 25 years before taking the editor’s post at the Santa Barbara News-Press, says there’s definitely a downside to private owners. Wendy McCaw, who bought the Santa Barbara paper six years ago with some of the $460 million she received in a divorce from cell phone pioneer Craig McCaw, has inserted herself into the newsroom so often that seven journalists, including Roberts, resigned last week in protest. In an interview with Editor & Publisher’s Joe Strupp, Roberts says that if a private investor wants to buy a newspaper, “Make sure that you understand that the paper is there to serve readers and the need to delegate things to professional to do that. Either that or run like hell.”