KION’s Salinas newsroom is dissolved, a devastating blow to the local news landscape.

Sara Rubin here, on an unhappy day for Monterey County’s local news coverage. Just after the editorial team at KION broke from their meeting at 10am this morning, a representative of Missouri-based parent, News-Press & Gazette Company, announced the newsroom was being dissolved. All 13 employees—reporters, anchors, meteorologists, producers—were laid off. Starting with the 5pm broadcast tonight, around the time this newsletter arrives in your inbox, San Francisco-based CBS station KPIX is taking over Channel 46. 

It’s an unhappy day for a few reasons. One is personal—while we at the Monterey County Weekly and Monterey County Now compete with KION, we also get to know our competitors. I’ll be sad to see their reliable, earnest team disappear. Many of them relocated to this area specifically for their jobs at the station and on a personal level, I will miss them. 

But more importantly, it’s bad for local journalism and the viewers who get the news from KION. Among those laid off today are Sandy Santos, the Spanish-language anchor for Telemundo 23; it’s the end of KION’s Spanish channel. And it’s the end of a newsroom of 13 people who live and work in the community, showing up at city council meetings and events and creating a public record.

KPIX is taking over, and in some remarkably Orwellian language promises great things for local news coverage—on the same day the Salinas newsroom was gutted. A press release from a firm representing KPIX and News-Press made no mention of the staffing cuts. When I sent a detailed list of questions, the only response I got was the same vapid press release I’d already read, and a suggestion to watch a video on KION’s homepage. 

“I’m so excited to announce that we’re expanding our coverage,” KPIX anchor Juliette Goodrich says with a smile. “We are expanding our commitment in California with local coverage of the Central Coast…one news team delivering hyper-local stories.”

Unclear is how they expect to deliver hyper-local stories by slashing their entire local news team. But the feel-good corporate doublespeak permeates the announcement. Rall Bradley, executive vice president of broadcast at News-Press & Gazette, had the gall to say: “This collaboration brings together KION’s deep roots in the community with the trusted reporting and innovative storytelling of CBS Bay Area.” I can think of a few better ways to honor KION’s roots in the community than laying off every reporter. 

I spoke briefly to KION’s outgoing managing editor Jeanette Bent as she was packing up her things. “It's a disservice to this community and we're all heartbroken,” she says. But she ends on a hopeful note for her former colleagues: “There are a bunch of really talented folks here who are going to go out and do amazing things." 

I sure hope so. There is local journalistic talent, and there is an audience hungry for local journalism. A thriving, diverse media landscape benefits us all.