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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Owned by no one—except you.

We just keep seeing it happen: Newsrooms owned by billionaires and corporations are spinning their own narratives, overwriting the truth, following only stories that keep them in the pocket of those with even more power.

Not here. We’re not owned by anyone. We’re not part of any cult that demands our allegiance to a bottom line. We’ve spoken up and spoken out while other newsrooms changed their stories—or cut them altogether—to keep the C suite happy.

Our mission is to find the truth and amplify it. That’s why we’re independent, nonprofit, and, crucially, funded by readers. The investigations on our website will always be free to read, watch, and listen to, but our newsroom is powered by readers who pitch in what they can so we can keep asking the hard questions.

Can you chip in today?

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