NBC4's Chuck Henry, Beverly White​, Vikki Vargas​ Take Buyouts: Report

LOS ANGELES, CA — For many, they have been the faces of Southern California news for decades, but this will be their last month as NBC4 newscasters. NBC4 evening news co-anchor Chuck Henry and veteran reporters Beverly White, Vikki Vargas, Kim Baldonado and Angie Crouch have accepted early retirement offers, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

Citing unnamed sources, the Times reported that the journalists accepted “voluntary early retirement” buyouts and will step down at the end of the month. Vargas, a longtime Orange County reporter took to Twitter to share the news.

"I didn’t want the feeling in my heart to get lost in the written word so I decided to announce my retirement transition this way, marking both an end and the beginning," she wrote.

It's a dramatic shakeup at KNBC-TV Channel 4 to let go of so many popular newscasters in a single round of buyouts. Between the five of them, they possess decades of Southern California reporting experience. Generations of Southlanders grew up trusting them for local news.

Henry has been with NBC since 1994. He won multiple Emmy's hosting "Eye on LA." Henry gained national attention covering a California wildfire in 2003 when flames engulfed his news van and he and his crew were rescued by Los Angeles firefighters.

Vargas rose through the ranks of television news in Orange County, eventually running NBC's Orange County bureau office. She's been with NBC since 1982, earning a Golden Mike Award in 2002. She covered everything from the opening of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library to the Northridge Earthquake.

Beverly White joined NBC4 as a reporter in 1992. She's covered everything from the street protests after the killing of George Floyd, the Seal Beach mass shooting and the deaths of Prince and Michael Jackson to Southern California natural disasters including the deadly Montecito mudslide and Northridge quake.

In 2018, she was honored with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Chuck Stone Lifetime Achievement Award.

Baldonado joined NBC in 1995 and has earned seven Emmy Awards for her work. A Los Angeles County native, she has covered education in Los Angeles and the homelessness crisis in Southern California.

Crouch is another Emmy-winning reporter who has been with NBC since 2004. She covered California's Station Fire and the Inauguration of Barack Obama.

According to the Times, the buyouts are part of a larger trend as outlets face an advertising downturn amid the threat of an economic recession.