Last week, recently resigned Sacramento Union Publisher James Smith went public with his claim that a member of the McClatchy family--the clan that owns The Sacramento Bee--is threatening editorial diversity in the River City. The Union, a venerable newspaper that until 1994 provided a second daily news dose in town, was resurrected last year as a fledgling Internet site and sort-of-monthly glossy magazine. Smith, a longtime newspaper exec who revived the name, promised that the Union would again be a conservative alternative to the Bee. When the Union announced last year that it would begin publishing a monthly magazine, 4,000...