Producer host Julia Dudley Najieb reviews revised, 30-min-ish, daily show format with ONME viewers and listeners, followed by the latest news headlines
By ONME Newswire
By the end of November 2021, the general public was still battling the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic; statewide media outlets were struggling to find new ways to grab income from online subscriptions, grants, PPP loans, or other means to maintain their remote staff, contractors and readers.
Meanwhile, local, micro-ethnic media outlets were picking up the pieces of their own newsrooms that were falling a part due to the lack of advertising support from local small businesses.
After the last News Too Real show in season 3 aired in November 2021, The digital ONME Podcast Network had to reach out to its sister network, the national AMPTV Network, tending to other projects to pay its news staff of contractors and podcasters through to the 2022 New Year -- an ever evolving task to ensure the information and news would reach the ONME Pocast Network audience.
As the slow opening of California proved to be difficult with the new COVID-19 variant Omicron ravaging residents, the delays affected the re-openings of Black businesses and organizations locally.
At The ONME Podcast Network, the executive producers took that time to reevaluate a different approach, revising their regional and local news coverage plan to maintain their podcast programming to attract more regional advertisers based in and out of California, since local advertising funding was bleak; consolidating operations and podcasts to cover more in less time would be one answer.
In analyzing the launching of the revised format of News Too Real, Julia Dudley Najieb saw the hiatus as an opportunity to reconstruct the video podcast to a live, daily, compacted broadcast, covering the different regions throughout California. The revised show format allows for more continuation broadcasts, such as what often happens during election time while covering different regions of California.
Dudley Najieb intends on covering four regions in California: Silicon Valley, Bay Area, Southern California and the Central Valley for the upcoming California statewide elections.
To help fund the podcasts and continue the news operation, organizations, groups, and individuals can submit their upcoming events for an inexpensive fee for their event promotion to be broadcast during the programming breaks. The breaks will also consist of various national and world headlines.
Viewers can watch the News Too Real video podcast online at scheduled times 7:00 PM and 7:00 AM PST or on-demand via OTT channels Roku and Amazon Fire TV.
California housing crisis is at a boiling point, but first rental assistance news:
Tomorrow, March 31, 2022 is the deadline in California for residents to apply for rental assistance related to economic hardship from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act – SB91 (Act) was signed into law January 29, 2021. The Act extended eviction protections to COVID-19 impacted tenants and established the state’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program.
The Act currently extends tenant protections included in the Tenant, Homeowner, and Small Landlord Relief and Stabilization Act of 2020 (AB 3088) to June 30, 2021. These protections were originally set to expire on February 1, 2021.
Eligible residents behind on their rent payments may get up to 18 months of assistance to cover rent debt accrued during the pandemic.
To qualify, tenants’ household income must be at or below 80% of the Area Median Income for their county.
Los Angeles County, the income limit would be $66,250 for an individual to apply, or 102,200 for a household of five.
Fresno County, the income limit would be $39,050 for an individual to apply, or 60,250 for a household of five.
Santa Clara County, the income limit would be $82,450.00 for an individual to apply, or $127,200.00 for a household of five.
If you’re a tenant, you will need to provide one of the following:
•A 2020 tax return
•2020 W-2 and 1099-G if the tenant was unemployed
•Current pay stubs
•Proof of participation in a state or federal subsidy program such as CalFresh or CalWORKS (like an acceptance or renewal letter).
Applicants can show evidence of hardship by signing a declaration of COVID-19-related financial distress.
Landlords with renters who are behind on their rent and need financial assistance can also apply for the COVID-19 Rent Relief program, if the renters verify that they meet eligibility requirements and sign the application.
For landlords applying, they must submit all of the following:
•A lease or rental agreement reflecting renter’s name, residence address and monthly rent due
•Rent ledger or rent statement showing the balance of unpaid rent from April 1, 2020
•W-8 or W-9 (for tax purposes)
Important Dates:
News Too Real Podcast 3-30-22 Headlines:
World
In March 2022, an ice shelf in East Antarctica did both. The collapse has reshaped a part of the Antarctic landscape where coastal glacial ice was once thought to be stable.
The change happened fast. At the start of March 2022, the floating shelf fed by the Glenzer and Conger glaciers was still intact. By the middle of the month, it had fallen apart. This image pair (above), acquired by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, shows the shelf before and after it disintegrated.
“The whole shelf collapsed in just around two weeks,” said Christopher Shuman, a University of Maryland, Baltimore County, glaciologist based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The icy remnants of both glacial shelf ice and adjacent sea ice dispersed from the waters around Bowman Island within weeks. “All of this took less than a month,” Shuman said. “It was quite the blowout.”
National
Lawmakers in California are continuing the discussion on reparations but still can’t seem to figure out who should qualify for the compensation. Some lawmakers say reparations should only be given to descendants of enslaved people. Others, however, say all Black people in the U.S. should be compensated for the ramifications of slavery, regardless of lineage or despite how much they suffered from systemic racism in housing, education and employment. While reparations have been discussed around the country, California is the only state that has made progress in the legislation, CBS News reports. In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation to create the two-year reparations task force, which aims to study the consequences of slavery and educate the public about its research.
California
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences said that Will Smith was asked to leave to Sunday’s Oscars after hitting Chris Rock but refused.
Many have questioned why Smith was allowed to remain seated front row at the Academy Awards after the incident. On Wednesday, the academy suggested that it attempted to remove the actor from the audience.
The academy’s board of governors met Wednesday to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Smith for violations against the group’s standards of conduct. The academy said Smith has the opportunity to defend himself in a written response before the board meets again on April 18. The academy said disciplinary action for Smith could include suspension, expulsion or other sanctions.