After 27 years, a Bay Area news anchor is off the air. Here's why.

Until last month, Darya Folsom was the Bay Area’s longest-running morning news anchor. For 27 years, she rolled out of bed at 3 a.m. and sat at KRON-TV’s news desk from 5 to 10 a.m., sharing the day’s headlines with locals as they made morning coffee. As the station rotated through staffers, Folsom remained a constant; by her count, she’s worked with 12 co-anchors and six news directors. 

“I’m the face of KRON,” Folsom put it plainly, when SFGATE spoke with her last week. Now, following a contract dispute with the station, she’s out of a job.

Folsom’s contract with KRON-TV expired Nov. 12. She said contract negotiations hit a wall shortly before this expiration date. And while Folsom has a lawyer, and said she plans to sue the station for the severance she believes she is owed, she’s come to accept her departure. In recent years, she’d begun to doubt her profession, she said.

“I’m done spreading news, and judgement, and stress, and sickness,” she said. “I want to spread love, right? And perspective and power.”

‘They can get somebody for a lot cheaper’

Folsom’s departure allegedly capped off an extended back-and-forth with her employer.

In earlier conversations with KRON-TV’s management, Folsom said she had expressed interest in pivoting to a different role. She had come to view the morning news as a toxic way to start the day, one that disposed viewers toward fear and distrust. In those discussions, she suggested anchoring later in the day, or switching to an interview format, which could be syndicated on other TV stations owned by Nexstar Media Group, KRON-TV’s owner.

Folsom alleged that when contract negotiations began, the station’s initial offer was for a new role. Under that contract, Folsom would have been taken off the air, and she would instead be producing content for KRON-TV’s Roku app, KRON4+. Instead of her substantial salary, she would receive hourly pay and work six hours per week. She declined the offer.

Folsom alleged the station then offered her a contract for her original job but with a $50,000 pay cut. After she refused that offer, KRON-TV finally offered her a contract at her current salary, which she said had been frozen for several years but with no provision for severance pay. 

“They can get somebody for a lot cheaper,” Folsom said. 

Folsom did not sign that offer. Her contract expired, and her employment ended — making her entitled to severance, she said. But KRON-TV did not pay it, she said. Now she’s planning to sue. (While she didn’t specify how much severance she believes she’s owed, she said it is “a good chunk of change.”)

Folsom also told SFGATE that KRON-TV did not tell her colleagues that she had left, causing a brief panic in the newsroom. The morning after her contract expired, she said she received a phone call from a KRON-TV producer at 4 a.m. asking where she was. She has now been missing from the morning broadcasts for nearly a month.

At the time of writing, Folsom’s profile is missing from KRON-TV’s masthead. Clicking on her byline redirects to the outlet’s homepage. SFGATE reached out to KRON-TV for comment on Folsom’s departure, but the station did not respond. 

‘I’m done spreading the news’

Those negotiations ended a yearslong saga for Folsom, during which she began having private misgivings about her profession. Now, she has a final message for viewers that won’t make it onto a teleprompter.

“Don’t start your day with the news,” Folsom said. “Because while you think it’s helping you be a better person, it’s actually killing you.”

Folsom said her moment of epiphany occurred around 2021, when three things happened. A person close to her had a mental breakdown; she began reading writers on spirituality, like Alan Watts; and she stopped personally consuming the news in the morning, other than what she had to read for work. Starting her day without the news, she said, “f—ing changed my life.” She said moved through her days with a different, more positive outlook. 

“I was suddenly surrounded by love,” Folsom said. “I was noticing all the gifts in my life. I was appreciating every moment I had on TV connecting with the viewers.”

Folsom clarified that she doesn’t believe that people should stop watching the news, only that it shouldn’t start their days. 

After her change of heart, Folsom said she grew interested in using her platform to share “interviews about transformation,” Oprah-style. This was one of her initial pitches to KRON-TV when she asked for a revamped role. 

Folsom’s departure coincides with other programming changes at the station. Last week, KRON-TV announced the return of Stanley Roberts’ “People Behaving Badly,” a weekly segment that exposes Bay Area residents for littering, biking through red lights and other minor infractions. “People Behaving Badly” returns to the network Thursday.

Now that she’s off the air, Folsom is thinking through her next moves. She’s planning to write a book, she said, and is considering pivoting to YouTube.

KRON-TV is part of Nexstar Media Group, the nation’s largest owner of broadcast TV stations.