This Isn’t “Goodbye” Forever

KPIX (San Francisco) Reporter Maria Cid Medina says she is leaving the station and TV news, at least for now.

Cid Medina says that the job “didn’t give me the life-work balance my family deserves.”

She posted this to her IG:

After nearly 20 years as a broadcast journalist, I’m hanging up my full-time reporter hat just a few days shy of my 7-year anniversary at KPIX.

After losing my son a year and a half ago, I started to look back on a career that didn’t give me the life-work balance my family deserves.

I’ve missed so many family dinners, school events, birthdays, weddings, holidays and have worked weekends, mornings and nights.

I can’t turn back the hands of time. But I wish I could.

One conversation that has constantly replayed in my head was with my son when he was 5-years-old. I told him I couldn’t take the day off for his Mother’s Day event at school. It was ratings month, and my boss at my former station had a strict policy that we were not allowed to request vacation days. I was new, and I felt pressured not to play hooky. My son turned to me and said, “Maybe you should get a new boss. She’s not nice.” It broke my heart.

After all the sacrifices that my family has made for me to pursue my dreams as a journalist, it’s time to spend time with them…and finally be able to say that I’ll be home for the holidays.

It’s been a wild ride. So many ups, downs, unforeseen twists and turns. Lots of adrenaline rushing stories, stories that made my stomach drop and some that I’m so honored to have told.

As a journalist, I get a front row seat to historical moments the public isn’t typically privy to — and wow, I’ve met so many amazing people along the way. Presidents, professional athletes, celebrities, and heroes.

But most of all, the most amazing people I’ve met are the friends I’ve made in and outside the newsroom, including you — the community who I get to interact with everyday. Thank you for trusting me for so long to tell your stories, to hold people accountable and to give the voiceless a voice they deserve.

I’ll be on-air for a couple more weeks, and will hopefully continue to be able to tell stories now and then…so this isn’t “goodbye” forever. 🙏🏽