A wild tale about a news war in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz, Calif. Photo (cc) 2005 by Coralie Mercier

James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times has a pretty wild story about the trials and tribulations of Lookout Santa Cruz, a news outlet in California launched by the longtime media analyst Ken Doctor. In Rainey’s telling, Doctor is a demanding, dictatorial boss who’s had trouble holding onto talent, and he’s angered his competitors with claims that they regard as dismissive.

On the other hand, it sounds like Doctor has pretty quickly established Lookout as the news source of record in Santa Cruz, even though the Santa Cruz Sentinel, owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, reaches more readers.

As it happens, we’ve had both Doctor and another of his competitors, Kara Meyberg Guzman, co-founder of Santa Cruz Local, on the “What Works” podcast, and we asked them both about each other. Please give them a listen.