Loneliness and political division: Voice of San Diego's 20 years of local journalism

S1: Coming up on KPBS roundtable this week , we explore the place where loneliness and politics meet , how time spent alone has gone up over the years , and how it's shaping our political culture.

S2: These people who are spending a lot of their time in solitude. They are people like of all age groups , of all ethnicities , of all education levels.

S1: Then Voice of San Diego marks 20 years of investigative journalism in our region. What lessons have they learned along the way ? Plus a look at other stories we've been following on the roundup. That's ahead on KPBS roundtable. Maybe you've noticed this. In recent years , people many of us , are spending more time alone. Studies show this has been a decades long trend. Group dinners. That's out. DoorDash , sushi for one. And binging Netflix. That's more likely. How about knocking on a neighbor's door unannounced to catch up ? That's not really a thing anymore , is it ? There's growing evidence that loneliness can have lasting impacts on our physical and mental health. But could loneliness also be shaping our politics ? That's one question Amita Sharma has explored in her recent reporting. She's an investigative reporter for KPBS Public Matters Project. Amita , welcome back to roundtable.

S2: Oh , it's good to be with you , Scott.

S1: So , loneliness and politics. Let's start here.

S2: Why ? They're lonely , the effects of it on them. And then last month , I read a story by Derek Thompson in the Atlantic. And there are two points in his piece that really , really stood out for me. And one is that these people who are spending a lot of their time in solitude. They are people like of all age groups , of all ethnicities , of all education levels , of all races. So that was different because I had covered loneliness among seniors. The second is that Thompson made the point that it is in the village , in that public arena where people disagree and they compromise. In other words , that's the practice of democracy. So I thought that I would explore that line of thought a little bit more at the local level. Fascinating.

S1: Fascinating.

S2: So more than half of Americans report feeling lonely. It's 52% , 47% report that their relationships are not meaningful. And I thought that was really huge. That really stood out for me. 58% of Americans say that they sometimes or always feel like people don't really know them. So they're not feeling seen. They're not feeling heard. There's not a sense of belonging. And there is a stat that Derek Thompson put out on X saying that only one quarter of restaurant traffic is actually people dining inside the restaurant. 75 or 74% of them are doing takeout. Wow.

S1: Wow. This discussion about more people spending more time alone , growing loneliness. It's you know , it's been in sort of in discussion as part of research for for years now. But I'm curious has has it been a steady trend or has it accelerated in recent years ? More people spending more time alone. This growing sense of loneliness.

S2: You know , I think the tendency is to think that this growing sense of loneliness really intensified with the onset of the pandemic in 2020. But the truth of the matter is , is that it actually started decades ago. There's this public policy professor by the name of Robert Putnam. You and I were talking about him yesterday , and he has done some studies around this. He reported that from the 1970s , the late 1970s to the late 1990s , people hosting friends for parties , uh , dinners at their home games dropped by 45%. Then , from the early 2000 , up until recently , the frequency of that kind of socializing within the home dropped 32%. So that is over time.

S1: And Robert Putnam's book from 2000 , Bowling Alone , a great read and a great way to get a better understanding of some of these , some of these issues.

S2: That face to face interaction builds trust. You're more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt. And you learn about different perspectives , different ways of thinking about the world , different ways of thinking about the issues. And I think Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said that when you are interacting with other people , you're more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt. These are all facets that one could argue are in short supply in our society right now.

S1:

S2: And so it makes the conversation around politics a little bit more acrimonious , a little bit more threatening sometimes. And , and , and oftentimes as you're seeing , um , more poisonous.

S1: What would you say to someone who , you know , responds to some of your reporting and says , I don't know , this seems overblown. You know , there's been discussion for a while in alarm about , you know , greater solitude , greater sense of loneliness , having a a degrading impact on our democratic and civic institutions. This isn't new. Yeah.

S2: Everything I've just outlined bolsters the case. Putnam was on to something since he first reported on isolation and loneliness in solitude. There's only been a steeper rise in that phenomena , and simultaneously , there's only been a steeper decline in our democracy.

S1: I primarily wanted to talk about this issue regarding loneliness and democracy and politics , but I do want to switch lanes to another story that you've been reporting on because it's fascinating , alarming and very pressing. Uh , university researchers are finding themselves stuck in limbo after recent actions from the Trump administration , including a directive to freeze federal grants and as well as executive orders. Taking aim , trying to clamp down on diversity , equity and inclusion efforts.

S2: There are 80,000 people in San Diego County that are employed by the life sciences or in the life sciences industry , whether that be at a university or a biotech job. Um , I spoke with Congressman Peters today. His district , the 50th district , receives the most National Institutes of Health funding in the state of California. And that's because within that district , you've got UC San Diego , you have Scripps Research , you have the Salk Institute , you have La Jolla Immunology. Their focus includes cancer research , drug discovery , immune disorders , vaccines. They're working on a wide variety of research. So when the Trump administration announced late last Friday that that they wanted to make 15% in cuts to the NIH. That meant that California would be losing $800 million in funding. So the stakes are high in terms of what's happening here. All of this was foretold. I had spoken to scientists back in December late last year , and they were extremely worried , extremely worried that their research might go away because the Trump administration may not want to fund it anymore. And for them , they still had these memories of what happened to science once a Covid hit. And there was so much dissension over vaccines , the Covid vaccine. And so they really worried that now when the Trump administration part two took over , that they would pick up where they left off , but it would not be targeted exclusively toward Covid or vaccines , that it would extend to all of science. And it appears now that they were right.

S1: In that letter from Congress member Scott Peters of California's 50th district.

S2: We are talking about HIV treatments in Africa. We are talking about the effect of epidemics on various populations. We are talking about reproductive health care. We're talking about nutrition. It's it runs the gamut.

S1: And just briefly to kind of wrap this up so we get a bigger picture understanding here. This research isn't just kind of abstract stuff that's happening in the background or some laboratory somewhere. And then is going to feature in an obscure journal. Right. This has a lot of real world impact.

S2: The knowledge that's gained from this research would go away , right ? I mean , you wouldn't do further research. You wouldn't learn more about the impacts of disease on particular communities. But it's it's kind of hard to measure at this point because because we really don't know what's going to stay and what's going to go away. Um , but the the threat of funding is very real. People at UC San Diego. Researchers there are very anxious , they're very fearful. And I've spoken to many scientists who say my entire position is funded by the federal government. If they do a federal funding freeze , it's permanent , right ? Then my job goes away. Uh , my entire staff is funded by the federal government. They go away the very their livelihoods , their life's work goes away. And UC San Diego is one of the top research institutions in the country. Their entire mission changes , right ? Students from all over the world come there to do research , to do cutting edge research. They're doing research right now , um , in AI , how how they can incorporate AI into healthcare. That all changes. The direction changes , the mission changes , and maybe it goes away.

S1: And of course , there are other institutions in the region that would also feel this impact. But UC San Diego being a big one for sure. We'll have to leave it there. Although we could keep going on for a long time , I'm sure we'll have you back on to discuss these topics and more. Amita Sharma is KPBS Public Matters reporter. Thanks again for joining us.

S2: Thank you for having me , Scott.

S1: When roundtable returns. One local news nonprofit celebrates 20 years of bringing original reporting to the San Diego region. We hear about the journey of Voice of San Diego next. That's ahead on roundtable. You're listening to KPBS roundtable. I'm Scott rod. In an era when news often gets called fake by those in power , and the number of newspapers continues to dwindle across the country. Local nonprofit Voice of San Diego is celebrating 20 years of bringing its original investigative reporting to the region. Throughout the years , Voices Reporting has uncovered financial malfeasance at local agencies , sexual misconduct in San Diego schools , and much , much more. I'm joined now by Scott Lewis. He is the voice of San Diego's CEO and editor in chief. Scott , welcome to roundtable.

S3: Thanks for having me.

S1:

S3: Right. And in fact , actually , we started at the kind of peak of the newspaper business , the very high point , um , newspapers were selling for , you know , hundreds of millions of dollars. There was a lot of profit still to be made. They felt like they had weathered the , the internet and , and were were back in their golden age. Uh , San Diego , the Union Tribune was really strong. There were several hundred people in the newsroom. Uh , but there was this kind of desire that there would be a different , more competitive landscape out there. And , uh , and that's what our founders wanted to put together and launched.

S1: Well , tell us more about voices origin story.

S3: They wanted the the most efficient way to hire journalists and to get as many different sources of revenue to pay them. And the nonprofit model presented itself. They didn't need to make money. And the nonprofit allows you to you still get sponsorships , you can get donations , you can get grants , you can get all these different ways of funding it. And they just figured that would be easier. So we weren't the first nonprofit news organization. There were public radio , and there were sort of these institutional center for Public Integrity and such that it existed for decades. But we were and we weren't the first online news organizations , and there were several , but we were the first to put those together for a local area , for a region. And it seemed to be the most efficient way , again , to get professional journalists working with as many different sources of of money to pay for them. Right.

S1: Right. So even if it wasn't the goal from the outset , voice was ahead of the curve. I mean , being a nonprofit newsroom that looked at , local issues and was primarily based online. I want to dig into some of the more memorable stories from voices. First , you know , 20 years one of the one of the first major stories focused on the CDC or the Southeastern Economic Development Corporation. Tell me about that story.

S3: More property taxes could be kept there and , and fed. But that it's a dicey proposition , right. You you're handing out money to make sure that things get built. And in the Southeastern Economic Development Corporation was set up to handle that for a traditionally underserved area. And we got tips and and investigated and found conflicts of interest. We found a an affordable housing complex where they hadn't filed the affordable housing. Sort of leans on the truss and and on the assets , which meant that people could just sell them for profit. And one of the persons that did that was a consultant for the agency that had set it up. And so that sort of stuff never quite hit. And then we finally were able to track down this , this discrepancy between how much they were saying they were paying their employees and how much they actually were. And we uncovered this system of embezzlement that later the AG prosecuted , the FBI , raided their offices. And that investigation got us the attention of the New York Times. They put us on the front page. And after that , we call that New York Times Day. It was in 2008 , changed everything. And and , you know , we ended up talking about the model and what we were doing for for months after that. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. In a piece for voice about. Well , voice is 20 year anniversary. You wrote that quote Sometimes the first thing you publish in a major investigation is meaningless and has no impact. And as you were describing , that story was a little bit of a slow burn before it really took off and ignited. But tell me more about that. Why do you say or what do you mean by the first story in a big investigation , it might be meaningless. It might not have much impact.

S3: Yeah , we we often say that you should get the minimally viable story out , that if you might know a lot more , you might have heard a lot more , but it's really hard to get the full thing. And there's a lot of investigative reporters that go through and they're like , they think that they have to get the big thing or else they've they've struck out right. But really , you know , if you get something on the record , we did another investigation of another redevelopment agency , the Center City Development Corporation , and all we were able the first story we were able to do is that this , the leader of it , had recused herself from a big negotiation that was going on. That's the only thing we got on. But getting that on the record , we were able to over time , you know , proved that she actually hadn't recused herself or hadn't effectively recused herself. And that was able to and it spun into , you know , more criminal charges and more change. And so I think the that was what I always tell people is you may not have the full thing , and your first story may not make a big difference , but it may lead to something else , to something else , to something else. And that's , you know , and , and your colleagues know , the more you dig , you just got to have that confidence that that something's going to be there. And , and you may need to let go at some point. But if you got tips , if you got that feeling that something's wrong , you got to keep going.

S1: You said this day that The New York Times did. This profile of voice was on the front page. You said it's known as New York Times Day. I imagine it's acknowledged or recognized in the office with like , a cake in the shape of the New York Times or something.

S3: There might be a plaque.

S1: Yeah , yeah , yeah.

S3: So after that came out , we got , you know , besieged with attention from across the country , foundations that wanted to support our work , other entrepreneurs that wanted to start something similar. That night , we got a call from a guy in Texas who wanted to start something similar. Within a year , he had launched the Texas Tribune , and now it's much bigger. There are now hundreds of those types of entities out there. And , you know , we getting something accomplished. So it is ironic that a print newspaper and its and its setting on the front page was what validated this online news organization the way that it did. But it had so much impact. As you know , we had journalists from Japan , from , uh , we were flying around the country and it kind of got to our heads , right ? We were like , oh , well , we figured this out and we hadn't actually figured out the business model very well , and that would catch up to us within a couple of years. But it did sort of spread the idea that while newspapers were going through this , this unheard of , unprecedented economic collapse , that there was another way to maybe fund journalism more directly rather than as this offshoot of this business that was more focused on advertising.

S1: Another , more recent story from voice focused on Sandag. The San Diego Association of Governments and its handling of a local sales tax. Can you tell us more about that story and the impact it had ? Yeah.

S3: In 2004 , Sandag had convinced voters to extend a half cent sales tax for 40 years , and they'd made all these promises about what was going to be done there. And then in 2016 , they were making they wanted another tax increase , and they were making more promises about what would be accomplished. But we were able to find out and , and , and reveal that their projections of how much money they were getting in were , were basically a lie. They ? They weren't going to get the money in from the previous sales tax to even deliver on the previous promises. And so all the new promises were essentially bogus. And so we we did that story , and there was a lot of fury that you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know your math. And and we withstood all of that pressure and were able to prove , yeah , the math was correct and they were wrong. The executive director had to resign. There was legislation passed to put an auditor at Sandag , which has had impact now , still over the years. And Sandag has never been the same since then. And not necessarily it's not necessarily recovered. You know , unfortunately , I'd like to see it be able to be a strong planner for the future in San Diego. But it was it was it was lying to people about what it could do. And it was really hard to uncover that and withstand the pressure we got because of it. But it was interesting. Afterward , we had a county supervisor who had written an op ed for us about all the things that the new tax increase was going to accomplish. And when we went back to him and said , well , what about the facts we've revealed here ? And he's like , oh , I didn't really write that op ed. Uh , that was one of my staff. And so we had to institute a rule that if you write an op ed for us , you have to declare to us that you were the one that wrote it , whether you actually typed it out or not , just because of the , the , the was this , like , hot potato thing where they nobody wanted to , like , be responsible for the story that this agency had been telling. No.

S1: No. Staffer. OP eds. No ie op eds. Right.

S3: Right. Well , you can have a staffer do it. You just have to be on the record that you wrote it.

S1: You mentioned sort of a philosophy earlier of voice , which is , you know , Schip , the minimally viable story that was mentioned in a piece you wrote this week about lessons that you've learned from voices 20 years. Another lesson that you've learned was don't panic. And you start by telling a pretty funny Story , and it starts with a joke sort of going awry. Tell me about that story. But also the don't the don't panic mantra.

S3: Yeah , the I don't remember what year it was , but cloud computing was the big thing. And , um , we had a story on our site about the new graduation standards that were affecting students. Students weren't getting ready. There was a class of 2016 that was coming along that was really struggling. And and it was unclear how how many of them would be qualified to graduate. And so we wrote a story , and the headline was The Ominous Cloud hanging over the class of 2016. And one day my my managing editor came around the corner and she looked at me through this glass wall we had. And she was she had this , like , ghost look , just this panicked look. And she said , and I said , what ? And she said , I think we've been hacked. And and we looked. And on the site , that headline had been changed from the ominous cloud hanging over the class of 2016 to the ominous but hanging over the class of 16.

S1: And the ominous but.

S3: The ominous but. And so we were like , well , somebody hacked us , or a former employees sabotaged some , or we were just like , I was panicking , I was pacing , I was calling everybody I could. And then our engagement editor came around the corner , and she was just as sheepish as it gets. And she said , you know , look , I've been so sick of hearing about cloud computing that I coded my browser to change the word cloud to , but and it made me laugh. Unfortunately , as she was editing that story , it changed that line. So , um , yeah , the don't panic thing , I there's been so many moments where we didn't know what was going to happen with a story , or a lawyer was threatening us , or money was , um , you know , a worry or , you know , we didn't we didn't know. I remember thinking , like , I hope I , I wish somebody would show me what I'm going to be like in six months because I don't know how I'm going to get through this. And and you know , I panicking never helped. It never helped to like , worry and wring your hands. And it it always helped to just picture the worst case scenario. And if you could deal with that you could get through it. And and that was kind of what I wanted to communicate is like there's you can you can worry. Worry is part of life. But there's a , there's , there's probably a worst case scenario that you can deal with. And , and think about that.

S1: For what it's worth , if I saw the headline the the but hanging over the class of 2026 , I would absolutely click on it. So yeah.

S3: Yeah , maybe we should have left.

S1: Uh , can you paint a picture of of what's involved in doing these types of investigative stories for voice ? You've talked a bit about some of the specific ones , but you know , from doing investigative stories myself , I know that there's a lot that goes into the reporting , a lot of the pushback , the hurdles , stuff behind the scenes that readers or listeners don't always necessarily see.

S3: And so our reporters have to balance that. And I always say , like , look , there's always something somewhere and you have to if you need some time to work on something , then do it. But , you know , you also have to stay relevant to your audience because they're the ones that are probably going to give you the tips for something big. And so that balance is the first step , you know , giving yourself time to look into something you've heard about. It's a very confidence , you know , intensive game. You have to feel like you're willing to stand up to people. You know , that there's something there. If you're willing to , you're strong enough to change your mind if something if the facts change. But there might be still some , some concern worth. Worth going through. And then you've got to. You've got to have an attention to detail and a and a concern about quality. That's really important. You've got to be willing to like you never want to surprise somebody with your story. You want to be able to call him and say like , hey , this is what's coming. You need to be ready. And we want you to make sure you've had all the opportunity possible to talk to us about it. You need to have a lawyer involved to review it , prevent it. And our lawyer's tough. You know , he he's he really pushes us to to make sure it's it's bulletproof. And then , you know , you've got to grit your teeth and publish it and you got to deal with the their lawyers sometimes come back. I'll never forget , you know , one moment where Guy said we had it wrong and he was going to sue us and he came in to meet with us. He said , you got this wrong. And we we pulled out a piece of paper and said , what about this ? And he's like , oh. And he just walked out of the room , didn't even say goodbye. And I remember at those moments , you have to like your heart's racing and you have to be willing to , like , handle those moments. Um , and it's it's a fun. It's a it's it's an exhilarating experience. And one thing I didn't realize when I started was that it's as fun to be an editor as it is to be a writer of those things , because you feel the accomplishment to as as as somebody comes back , there's nothing better than when a reporter comes back and looks at you and says , hey , I got something and and tells you about it , and you're like , oh , that's that's good stuff. Thanks , man.

S1:

S3: It hasn't changed as much as you might think. Like they I've always said , like , all you have to do is hold a mirror up to somebody and they'll fix their hair. Like it could be just one person reading a story. And that's often enough for them to feel like somebody's watching that they need to be. They need to change things. And I think that's still the case. Like they still read , they still follow. Now , I think a little bit of what's changed is and Trump's shown the way a little bit , is that they know that they can get a community , they can get stuff out separately , and some of them are very clear that they don't need you or they don't care about you. In an argument with a small city mayor recently where he's like , look , I just don't want to I don't want to deal with you at all. I'm just going to go straight to the public with whatever I care about. And I was like , there was a part of me that was kind of like , okay , that's fine , that's fine. Deal. I'm going to still do stuff about you , though , and I'm and it would be good to have a relationship so that you can you can put that into context. So I think there's that that option. I always knew that , that politicians were going to figure out the tools of communication to the point where they didn't need to see us as gatekeepers anymore. But in that sense , we always have to remain like the people who can make sense of what they're saying and the people who can find out what they don't want to say , because those they're not going to do those things. And so , yeah , I don't mind ceding that territory to them if they want to report all their good news. You know , we met with the new county , Pio , the leader of the communication staff. She has twice as many people working on communications at the County of San Diego. Then we have at Voice San Diego and Pio.

S1: Public information officer.

S3: Yeah , exactly. And so ? So she can do all the public nice stuff she wants , but I'm going to reserve our resources for , again , making sense of what they do and finding out things that they don't want to want to talk about. And so , you know , that that makes the people say like , oh , they're just concerned about negative stuff. But no , we're reserving our resources for what we can make the best impact with. And and so that's changed a little bit. But I think , um , I think I think the other thing that has really stood out about public officials , I don't know if it's unique to San Diego. I haven't spent as near enough time studying other places , but they're very fearful. There are so many of them. They're so worried about everything. They're worried about any bit of negative news or any bit of criticism. They're worried about taking risks. Um , and I , I find that odd because I think that they only get to be these the city council or the mayor once ? Like why not do something exciting ? Take a risk. So what if you know. Some nerd is calling you out on it. Like you can you can deal with that , have integrity , have a vision. But I find it odd how how fearful they remain about their own shadow sometimes.

S1: How has voice adapted to the tumultuous landscape of news and journalism ? Because you said , you know , in 2005 , when it started , very different landscape newspapers were still , you know , riding high. And they said and they kind of felt like you had said that this fad of the internet was starting to wane. We're going to sort of reclaim our position. Obviously , that did not happen. And a lot has happened over the last 20 years , even just in the last few years.

S3: Now , anybody who was just passing information from one source to another like , okay , that makes sense. I think the loss of the the investigative reporters and the sense makers is the big deal. There's sort of A2A twin crisis , right ? The one crisis is the economics , where people can get their ads and their , you know , their services separately and from services that provide it directly. You know , you don't have to look at the newspaper for your movie listing or your job ad anymore. That's the economic crisis. The existential crisis that we're seeing is the people who say like , no , that's not that's not only like something you can't trust. It's literally something that is the enemy , that they're doing the wrong thing. And those two crises are different and they're playing at the same time. The only thing that news organizations can do is build trust. And our funding model , I think , optimizes for that because we're asking people to donate what they can. We have 4000 donors now. And you have , you know , KPBS has tens of thousands. And the point being , like you're creating a relationship with them based on trust , that you have a conversation with them. You make corrections when you have to. You admit where your funding is coming from , you. You're vulnerable where you need to be. You're confident where you need to be. That trust is the only thing that's going to distinguish news organizations going forward. There's just there's no magic business that you can attach a news organization to , like we did in the past with the with the ad revenue. We're funding it more directly. We're funding it from diverse base of support of individuals. And that's the best we can do. And we the only hope we can do is that there's enough capital that comes in so that we can keep trying. New things , cover new places , new topics , and get as big as we can.

S1: Scott Lewis is voice of San Diego's CEO and Editor in Chief. Scott , thanks and congrats again on 20 years.

S3: Thanks means a lot. Appreciate it.

S1: Up next , it's time for our round up discussion of notable stories from this week. Stay tuned. Roundtable's back after the break. This is KPBS Round Table. I'm Scott rod. It's time to take a look at some other stories that caught our eye this week. Joining me for the round up in studio is KPBS producer Andrew Bracken. Hey , Andrew.

S4: Hey , Scott.

S1:

S4: But I'm going to let you kind of get things started this week.

S1: PBS , the broadcaster , decided to shutter its Dei office , its diversity , equity and inclusion office. Now , we spoke with Amita Sharma earlier on the program about how some of President Donald Trump's executive orders , including ones related to die , were impacting researchers. Here in the San Diego region. This shuttering of the Dei office at PBS was , I think , more of a direct goal of the Trump administration with their with Trump's executive orders when it comes to die. Now , the broadcaster says that it wants to remain in compliance with these orders. This was advice that came from legal counsel , and they let go of two Dei staffers. And for me , one just the shuttering of the office was notable. Uh , one for it being PBS , but also it just shows that these these orders , they're not just abstract , they're having real world tangible impacts. It also highlights the intersection of a couple issues here , which is , of course , the executive orders on Dei initiatives and programs , but also the administration's targeting of public media. The Federal Communications Commission under Trump is now investigating NPR and PBS and local stations over its practices regarding airing sponsorship messages , and Trump and his allies in Congress have called for defunding NPR and PBS repeatedly. So , again , an interesting intersection of a few different issues that Trump has really trumpeted in recent weeks and months. Yeah.

S4: Yeah. And it reminds me of a conversation you had with KPBS military reporter Andrew Dyer a couple of weeks ago about Trump's effort to eliminate die in America's military and sort of the impacts it was having there , some of the questions it was being brought up in the military. And then , of course , you know , from a lot of private companies , a lot of these big , you know , multinational companies kind of have been already announcing , eliminating their Dei programs , places like Google and McDonald's , Disney and others. So it does seem to be this kind of having real world impacts like you mentioned.

S1: Yeah , it's certainly worth noting that PBS is not by any means , by any stretch , the only company that's been doing this. Again , it kind of stood out from some of the others. I think there was even initial conversation with some of these companies , some of the bigger ones , like you mentioned , Disney , meta , Google , McDonald's , you know , were they implementing these diversity Dei programs for , you know , as a way to kind of , you know , appease people ? Were they legit about it or were they really behind it ? From what all I can tell about PBS is Dei office. They fully believed in the mission of it , and it seemed like if you read the statement in the memo coming from the folks at PBS , there was almost a a reluctance , a Luck or reluctance in a way , or a kind of , um , sadness might not be the right word , maybe the too strong of a word , but a feeling as if this is not what they really wanted to do , but they felt really compelled to do it. And it might be worth noting , you know , some folks might be wondering , well , what does that mean for some of the local stations , including KPBS ? We got a note from our general manager at the station that said , look , we're keeping our D-I office. That's going to be something that we stand behind. So worth noting that there. But I think that there are going to be more of these eliminations at other companies , certainly. And we'll see where else in the weeks and months ahead. But let's bring it back local. We're up in kind of the federal national story. Stratosphere. You got a couple local stories for us to talk about what's going on ? Yeah.

S4: It's everybody's favorite topic. Parking. Parking rates have doubled in the city. And a new source published basically just kind of what you need to know about parking rates , the new rates , how it works. As we've talked about on roundtable , the city is facing this. You know , over 200 , $250 million budget deficit. And one change they've made is to double street parking rates for meters. I think it impacts some 5000 or so meters in the city. And it's , you know , not expected to eliminate the deficit. I think they're targeting that it might increase revenue some $4 million this fiscal , which ends , you know , in June. But there are debates about who it impacts and who it affects. You know , I think some people are arguing it impacts low income San Diegans more than than not. So we'll be interesting to see. There's still more discussion about even more increases or more changes to to parking rates in San Diego.

S1: And the rate is going from , I believe , $1.25 per hour to 250 an hour. You know , my first reaction to that is , well , dollar 25 seems pretty low. 250 maybe that seems more appropriate for what it should be , but you raise a good point that $2.50 , especially if people are going to these areas that have metered parking often , maybe for work that really adds up for them and that could be a hit on their , you know , hit on their wallet , hit on their pocketbook and all that. Actually , I did a story a few weeks ago about parking in a new law that is worth noting for folks , because it's a big change for drivers in California. You're not allowed to park within 20ft of it marked or unmarked crosswalk that that impacts a lot of intersections. And an important note on that , even if the curb is not painted red or there isn't a sign there , you can still get a ticket. So the city is putting out it's handing out warnings right now. But starting in March , I believe they're going to start giving out tickets and it's like 78 bucks. So look out for that.

S4: But it's that sort of trial period. Still , we're in right now for the next month or so , right ? Yes. I mean another parking one and I'll do this one briefly. But convoy is such a great neighborhood. I love going there , but you can't talk about that area without talking about how hard parking is. There it is. Every time , you know , you go to certain restaurants there and things , it feels like you're going to a concert and looking for a parking spot. It's always a challenge. And Fox five San Diego covered how businesses there , and these parking lots are looking to really enforce time limits and make sure people get in and out of there , or at least pay if they're going to stay longer than two hours. So it's a great hub. There's so much culture there , there's so much food , but it'll be interesting to kind of see if the parking there improves because it is kind of a nightmare.

S1: That's right. If you want to eat some hot pot , you better do it quick. Get in , get out. You got two hours. Chow down. And there's some news on the Wonder Front Festival , right ? Yeah.

S4: This one is from Axios San Diego. The wonder front fest. This is a music festival that's been going on for a few years here in San Diego , down at Waterfront Park. So they announced their lineup this year. Some of the artists appearing include Anderson Park , Janelle Monet , Foster the People , a lot of others. Among them is Khruangbin this this band from Houston that I really like. Their drummer is great , and he actually has a lot of memes about how perfect impeccable his timing is , and I really appreciate his groove. So that'll be cool. The tickets are on sale now for that. So if you're a music fest person , that might be something to look at in just a couple months.

S1:

S4: Nice.

S1: Nice.

S4: There's certain shows where you are and you're like , this is the place to be right now , and you can feel the energy and , you know , it's like a really special moment. That was one example of that. Nice.

S1: Nice. Yeah.

S4: Yeah. I mean , that's what the festival energy can bring , right ? Like when you hit see the right artist at the right time and you're around the right folks and it's it just clicks. It's cool. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. We'll look out for tickets to wonder front coming up then. I've been speaking with KPBS producer Andrew Bracken. Andrew. Thanks.

S4: Thanks , Scott.

S1: Thanks for listening to KPBS roundtable. You can listen to the show anytime as a podcast. Roundtable airs on KPBS FM at noon on Fridays and again Sundays at 6 a.m.. If you have any thoughts on today's show , you can email us at roundtable at KPBS. You can also leave us a message at (619) 452-0228. Roundtable's technical producer this week was Brandon Troopa. This show was produced by Andrew Bracken. Brooke Ruth is Roundtable's senior producer. And I'm Scott Rodd. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend.