In 2018, WAMU 88.5 – Washington, D.C.’s NPR member station – saved beloved local publication DCist from certain death. WAMU’s funding and support kept DCist alive and enabled it to continue serving the community with the thoughtful journalism readers had come to love. Six years later, however, WAMU announced it would shut down DCist in favor of prioritizing audio-first content. DCist then joined the thousands of newspapers and news sites that have disappeared across the United States in the last...

Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday calling on the company to “immediately abandon” Instagram’s new Map feature after many app users voiced their privacy concerns online.The purpose of the maps feature, according to a press release from Meta, is to provide a “lightweight” method for users to connect with each other and explore local happenings by allowing people to share where they are in real time. Users can acces...

Thousands of Angelenos and visitors attended the “Fight Oligarchy” tour, which featured speeches by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at Gloria Molina Grand Park on April 12.Stars also attended, and attendees enjoyed music by Joan Baez, Maggie Rogers and Neil Young.Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez’s tour is a nationwide series of rallies aimed at reigniting the United States’ voter base against what they term oligarchs in government. The April 12 rally featured hours of speeches by...

The Los Angeles Homelessness Service Authority (LAHSA) was dealt a second blow on April 4 as embattled CEO Dr. Va Lecia Adams Kellum announced her resignation in a letter to the organization’s commissioners. Her resignation came just three days after the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to pull their funding from her agency — a whopping $300 million, about 40% of LAHSA’s budget — and create a new county agency for homelessness.In her letter, Adams Kellum cited the board’s action among her re...

Franklin, with his apparent penchant for analogies, joked with me that journalists are like traffic cops on the 10 Freeway. If you think a police car is nearby, you’ll probably abide by the posted speed limits or only drive slightly above to avoid a ticket. But if you find no cops in sight, you may push your luck. When a locality has journalists assigned to local government affairs, officials are cautious. But take the journalists away and … you get the idea. 
There is — don’t worry — evidence f...

The day of the conference
Hours before the conference was supposed to take place, organizers learned Gurbanov would be present. Bay wrote the organizers advised that he not attend, but he did anyway. 
Then, around 50 demonstrators protested for hours both inside and outside the event, interrupting speakers and chanting before Department of Public Safety officers escorted them out of Annenberg Hall. 
Mane Berikyan, vice president of ASA, said Armenian students learned of Gurbanov’s presence in th...