California
KOCE-TV’s public affairs program, Inside OC with Rick Reiff (now SoCaL Insider with Rick Reiff), has broadened its focus to encompass all six counties of southern California, reflecting PBS SoCaL/KOCE’s new status as the PBS flagship station for the entire Los Angeles media market. The program, which won a 2011 RTNA Golden Mike Award (Division B) for Best News Public Affairs Program, continues to feature interviews with newsmakers and trendsetters, panel discussions, and in-depth field reports.
KQED Public Radio in San Francisco produces six award-winning public affairs programs, including Forum, a live weekday call-in news and public affairs program, and The California Report, a daily news program, and also assists in the production of four other radio programs.
San Francisco KQED-TV’s weekly series ImageMakers allows viewers to see for the first time short narrative works by emerging filmmakers. (Two short films by Jason Reitman were aired on ImageMakers years before the director received four Academy Award nominations.) With short films getting little exposure outside of film festivals, this weekly program provides a rare venue for, and often the television premiere of, award-winning short films by national and international filmmakers.
America’s Heartland, an Emmy Award–winning magazine-style, half-hour series produced by KVIE-TV in Sacramento, offers positive stories about American agriculture weekly on air and daily online. The series is a national evolution of KVIE’s popular and award-winning California Heartland series.