‘Heartbroken’: staff laid off as California TV station abruptly closes newsroom; The Guardian, September 25, 2025

 Dani Anguiano, The Guardian; ‘Heartbroken’: staff laid off as California TV station abruptly closes newsroom

[Kip Currier: This is another stark indicator of the dangers that media consolidation represents. Media consolidation impedes the ability of citizens to access information, particularly local information. Informed citizenries are vital for functioning democracies.]

[Excerpt] 

"This week KION-TV, a broadcast news outlet on California’s central coast that’s been on the air for more than 50 years, announced it was entering a “new chapter” with a San Francisco CBS affiliate to bring expanded coverage to its viewers...

“Our partnership with KPIX ensures that viewers across the Monterey, Salinas and Santa Cruz region continue to receive the high-quality local journalism they deserve,” Rall Bradley, an executive at the News-Press & Gazette, said...

Meanwhile, workers report that Telemundo 23, which was housed at KION, is also shutting down, leaving an area with a majority-Latino population without a Spanish-language news show.

Local news has collapsed across the US in recent decades, with a 75% drop in local journalists since 2002, according to a report from Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News, which describes the decline as “alarming and widespread”. One in three US counties do not have the equivalent of one full-time local journalist, and an average of 2.5 newspapers shut down each week.

Monterey County Now described the development as a “devastating blow” to local journalism. Jeanette Bent, the station’s managing editor, told the outlet: “It’s a disservice to this community and we’re all heartbroken.”"

UVA President James Ryan Caved to MAGA—and They Forced Him Out Anyway; The New Republic, June 27, 2025

 Siva Vaidhyanathan, The New Republic ; UVA President James Ryan Caved to MAGA—and They Forced Him Out Anyway

[Kip Currier: Capitulation to Trump almost never gives people and organizations what they think or hope it will. For examples, just look to the craven law firms that have debased themselves and are paying the price for submission.

The forcing out of UVA President James Ryan is just another step in what Trump et al have planned for higher education.]

[Excerpt]

"Thomas Jefferson’s vision for a noble and educated republic has been dealt a firm blow. The enemies of free and open inquiry, of science, and of informed, democratic citizenship have chopped off the head of the very university Jefferson founded to make his vision real. 

On Friday, the Trump administration, aided by a board appointed entirely by Republican Governor Glenn Younkin, forced University of Virginia President James Ryan to resign. The Justice Department had threatened to block all federal funds to the second-oldest public university in the country if Ryan remained in office.   

Ryan and the board had eliminated all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in March, even though the specious executive order commanding such changes was already under challenge by the courts. The university chose to comply rather than fight.   

But, in a turn that Franz Kafka would appreciate (and perhaps inspired), the Trump administration declared that capitulation insufficient. In a clumsily worded letter to the university sent in April, the Department of Justice claimed that it had “received complaints that [Ryan’s] office and the University may have failed to implement these directives and further that you have refused to produce the report on the matter.”...

To this day, no one at the university has a clear idea what the university could or should have done. The New York Times reported Thursday that the only specific move the Justice Department demanded in recent weeks was Ryan’s resignation. 

Laying the attack on the University of Virginia on DEI was brilliant and maddening. What, exactly, is DEI? Those of us who work in universities have a good idea. It is the collection of efforts and programs that allow students who have served in the military, do not come from homes that have had college students before, graduated from high schools deep in the coal fields of Appalachia, arrived on student visas from Nigeria, have endured sexual violence or harassment, or occupy segments of society that are constantly under attack from the majority to succeed and graduate. They are not zero-sum programs. They do not deny anyone else an opportunity to attend a university or thrive at one.   

DEI programs recognize that society and the world are complex, diverse places."