It feels like every other week, for the entire year, I have read about a newsroom cutting staff. Big places, small places, local places. Even Voice of San Diego.
But the sale of the Union-Tribune (and LA Times) this week felt like a deeper fissure in news media — especially for our region — all part of a huge quake moving the landscape around us.
As VOSD Podcast host Scott Lewis and Will Huntsberry wrote this week, Los Angeles’ richest man, Patrick Soon-Shiong (and his family), sold the U-T and the LA Times to MediaNews Group, owned by Alden Global Capital.
The U-T has had six owners since 2009. Soon-Shiong at the start of his tenure promised “stability.” Now it seems there’s anything but.
This week on the show, Lewis, along with co-hosts Andrea Lopez-Villafaña and Jakob McWhinney, discuss how the news came trickling out at the start of the week — followed quickly by staff reduction notices and buyout offers for the waning paper. Our hosts also look at the wider picture: How did newspapers get to this point? And is there a route to stability for regional journalism?
‘Where Is My Super Supe?’
After a lot of telegraphing — and speculation by journalists and politicos — former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer finally announced his campaign for County Supervisor 2024.
In an immediate clap-back, Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, whom Faulconer seeks to unseat, tweeted: “Kevin Faulconer was a complete failure as Mayor.”
In this segment, we review Faulconer’s tenure, and how “The Kev” may stack up against the incumbent and the other guy angling for the seat: Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey.
But wait: Even sooner than ’24 is the special election to replace Nathan Fletcher on the Board.
On the pod, we review the candidates and what’s at stake as Fletcher’s fall put the Democrats’ majority in jeopardy.
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