journalists

After Nexstar Media Group announced layoffs at KTLA-TV this week, some viewers have expressed shock and dismay over losing several longtime local broadcast journalists at the station.

The cuts included KTLA weatherman Mark Kriski, weathercaster Kacey Montoya, midday anchors Lu Parker and Glen Walker and reporter Ellina Abovian. The layoffs come as Nexstar attempts to cut costs and pursues a merger with rival media company Tegna.

Abovian, who was a general assignment reporter at the station, reflected on the layoffs on social media, saying in a video posted to Threads on Thursday that she was “blindsided,” and that the cuts were “part of corporate restructuring.”

“Corporate layoffs are a part of life and this is just the game of life. They’re impacting people across multiple industries right now, so I’m not the only one, and my situation certainly isn’t unique,” said Abovian, who worked at the station for more than a decade. “But it’s hard to process, considering how it happened.”

Some viewers and fellow journalists have also expressed their disappointment.

CNN anchor Elex Michaelson responded on X, writing, “Mark Kriski is an L.A. broadcasting icon. As a kid, the OG KTLA Morning News crew (Carlos, Barbara, Mark, Sam, Eric, Gayle, etc) inspired me to want to be a journalist. I have great respect for Glen, Lu, Kacey, and Elina as well … all great people … and talented broadcasters.”

Each of the laid-off journalists had been with the station for a number of years. Kriski had been with KTLA since 1991, and Walker sat at the station’s anchor desk since 2010. Parker joined KTLA in 2005.

KTLA morning news anchor Frank Buckley addressed the situation before continuing with the broadcast Thursday.

“As you probably know, we are extremely limited in what we can say,” Buckley said. “But if you are a regular viewer of this program and of this TV station, you also know that we are a family here. We consider you to be part of that family. And when family members experience tough times, we all feel it. So this is a difficult time for us. And we will go through it together.”

SAG-AFTRA, which represents the laid-off journalists, issued a release on Wednesday condemning the cuts. The guild disclosed that it is “actively bargaining with Nexstar stations in multiple markets.” It accused Nexstar of pushing “to gut severance pay and insert onerous provisions into the union contract that limit workers’ ability to freely negotiate the terms of their own employment.”

“By laying off journalists across the country, Nexstar is eroding the resources and talent that local communities rely on for trusted news,” said SAG-AFTRA’s President Sean Astin in the release. “These actions highlight the risks of media consolidation and underscore the urgent need for regulators and the company to prioritize the public interest and the professionals who serve it.”

Nexstar operates 201 stations in 116 local markets in the U.S., reaching 70% of American households. It is the largest TV station ownership group in the U.S. Tegna owns television stations in 51 U.S. markets. Following the pending $6.2-billion merger, the standing company will have 265 stations, representing 80% of U.S. TV households.

President Trump has expressed his support for the deal in a social media post earlier this month.

He wrote, “Letting Good Deals get done like Nexstar – Tegna will help knock out the Fake News because there will be more competition, and at a higher and more sophisticated level. Those that are opposed don’t fully understand how good the concept of this Deal is for them, but they will in the future.”

Nexstar Media Group is slashing personnel from its TV stations, including several on-air veterans at Los Angeles outlet KTLA.

Glen Walker and Lu Parker, anchors of KTLA’s late morning and midday newscasts, are out along with meteorologist Mark Kriski, according to people briefed on the moves not authorized to speak publicly.

Kriski had been with KTLA since 1991, while Walker has been at the station’s anchor desk since 2010. Parker joined KTLA in 2005.

A representative for Nexstar said the company does not comment on personnel issues, adding it is “taking steps necessary to compete effectively in this period of unprecedented change.”

The layoffs are part of a company-wide cost reduction across Nexstar’s stations. The Irving, Texas-based media giant, which recently agreed to a $6.2-billion merger with station group Tegna, is looking for savings as traditional TV viewing declines and puts pressure on ad revenue as consumers continue to move to video-streaming platforms.

Television station groups have been lobbying the government to lift restrictions that limit them to 39% coverage of U.S households. They say lifting the cap will enable them to better compete with technology companies that have no such restrictions.

Nexstar is the largest TV station ownership group in the U.S. It also operates the cable network NewsNation, which has been slow to make significant inroads against established channels CNN, Fox News and MSNBC since it launched in 2020.

Nexstar has been chipping away at the staff of its Chicago station WGN, which produces 12 hours of local news daily. A total of 21 people have been cut in recent weeks, including nine reporters and anchors on Monday.

Known locally as “Chicago’s Very Own,” WGN has long been a source of civic pride in the city. Insiders at the station say they have been deluged with emails and texts expressing dismay over Nexstar’s moves, which eliminated a number of staffers with decades of experience and institutional knowledge.

Among those let go is Dean Richards, WGN’s longtime entertainment reporter and critic who has been a fixture at Hollywood press junkets.

At New York’s WPIX, Nexstar eliminated at least three on-air positions, including weekend anchor and reporter John Muller and afternoon anchor Arrianee LeBeau, who covered transit for the morning newscast.

SAG-AFTRA, which represents employees at KTLA and WGN, issued a statement blasting the cuts.

“By laying off journalists across the country, Nexstar is eroding the resources and talent that local communities rely on for trusted news,” SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin said. “These actions highlight the risks of media consolidation and underscore the urgent need for regulators and the company to prioritize the public interest and the professionals who serve it.

KTLA, WGN and WPIX have been part of Nexstar since 2019, when the company completed its acquisition of Tribune Broadcasting.

Feb. 25 (UPI) — Two-third of the 129 journalists killed around the world while doing their jobs in 2025 were at the hands of Israel, said a new report out Wednesday.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said its annual tally of journalists and media workers killed, the worst in the more than three decades since it started collating the data in 1992, came amid armed conflict at historically unprecedented levels globally.

A record 86 members of the press were killed by Israeli fire, up from the previous record of 85 in 2024, more than 60% of whom were Palestinian reporters from Gaza. The others were killed in Lebanon, Yemen and Iran, said the New York-based CPJ.

There were nine recorded journalist killings in Sudan for the year, six in Mexico, four in Russia — with that figure incorporating Ukrainian press members killed by Russian forces — and three in the Philippines. A dozen-and-a-half other countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America accounted for the remaining 21 deaths.

Of the 129 total, CPJ said 47 were documented targeted killings, which CPJ classifies as murder.

“Within the context of rising conflict worldwide, Israel’s disregard for the lives of journalists — and the international laws intended to protect them — is unparalleled. Israel has now killed more journalists than any other government since CPJ began collecting records in 1992, making the Israel-Gaza war (which incorporates Israel’s killings in Gaza as well as its lethal attacks in Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran) the deadliest on record for journalists.

“Three of these killings, including one murder, occurred after the October 2025 ceasefire,” the committee said.

The CPJ said the surge in killings globally was being driven by an entrenched climate of impunity for attacks on press and media workers in which action to find and hold those responsible to account was increasingly rare.

“There have been almost no transparent investigations into the targeted killings in 2025 — the highest number of journalists deliberately killed for their work in the past decade — and no one has been held accountable,” said the CPJ.

“These killings of journalists violate international humanitarian law, which stipulates that journalists are civilians and should never be deliberately targeted,” it added.

That impunity emboldened those intent on silencing journalists, including in countries where there is no current armed conflict.

CPJ warned that the rise in killings was a reflection of the wider risks confronting press freedom amid the chilling effect of efforts to discredit journalists, abuse of the law to try to make fair, accurate and balanced reporting a crime and inflammatory rhetoric and harassment online, even in Western “liberal democracies.”

“Journalists are being killed in record numbers at a time when access to information is more important than ever. Attacks on the media are a leading indicator of attacks on other freedoms, and much more needs to be done to prevent these killings and punish the perpetrators,” warned CEO Jodie Ginsberg.

“We are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news,” she added.