Radio Station Lays Off All 47 of Its Journalists, Will Play Beyoncé All Day Everyday Instead

AP/Mason Poole

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Houston’s one and only 24-hour news station is closing up shop and replacing all its journalists with the perfect homage to the very best thing Houston has ever produced, yes, Beyonce.

We’d like to thank the News92 staff for their outstanding service, our advertisers and each of you our listeners and web visitors for your support. This difficult decision is a result of sustained poor ratings performance and significant financial losses over the past three years despite the substantial financial and human resources we invested. Unfortunately, the market hasn’t shown a sustainable appetite for news radio, but each of you motivated us daily to produce a high-quality news program. Together, we made history.

Yes! History has been made. The world is truly a better place with the addition of an all encompassing destination dedicated to unrelenting Beyonce consumption. To say otherwise would be blasphemous, annoyingly contrarian.

But also considering 47 people just lost their jobs, this is sad news. It’s even more pathetic for radio and journalism as a whole! But when the same day also presents to you a Chevron-funded newspaper in the same town where a Chevron refinery sparked a massive fire, we’ll take all day, everyday Beyonce any day.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

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