KQED News Covers the New Hampshire Primary

Veteran journalist Belva Davis to appear live from New Hampshire on This Week in Northern California

Download hi-res JPG: Belva Davis, host of This Week in Northern California. Photo credit: Greg Habiby © KQED 2009.

San Francisco, January 5, 2012 - KQED's This Week in Northern California is taking viewers to the presidential campaign trail in New Hampshire on Friday to cover the issues vital to Californians and their communities.

At 7:30pm Friday on KQED 9 the program will be live in New Hampshire with host and award-winning journalist Belva Davis and Carla Marinucci, the senior political writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Davis and Marinucci are spending the week in the Granite State and they will discuss what they've learned from candidates, voters and political operatives about ideas to address the challenges facing California.

Davis says she looks forward to comparing how voters interact with candidates in New Hampshire and California.

"The greatest challenge journalists face today is helping people from all backgrounds feel that the democratic process still works and that their votes count - whether they live in one of the smallest or largest states in the union," she says.

Since becoming the first African-American female television reporter on the West Coast in 1966, Belva Davis has been an inspiration for professional and aspiring journalists. She has more than three decades of television experience, having worked first for KPIX, then KQED Public Television, then KRON before returning to KQED to host This Week in Northern California.

It was her coverage of the 1964 presidential campaign that inspired Davis to become a broadcast journalist, says Joanne Elgart Jennings, executive producer of This Week in Northern California.

"We are thrilled to launch our 2012 election coverage with Belva and Carla on the campaign trail together. They have a no-nonsense approach to asking candidates the questions viewers want answered," Jennings says.

Marinucci will be live blogging and covering candidates' events and debates from New Hampshire this week for the San Francisco Chronicle as well as This Week in Northern California. Follow her on the Politics blog at SFGate.com and find her on Twitter at Twitter.com/cmarinucci.

This Week in Northern California offers insightful, thought-provoking roundtable discussions and news analysis of the latest political topics. Local reporters from diverse media outlets throughout the region open their notebooks for an inside look at the stories behind the headlines every Friday night.

Scott Shafer, host of KQED Public Radio's The California Report, will fill in for Davis in the host's chair Friday on This Week in Northern California. He will moderate the reporters' roundtable and will interview George Gascón, San Francisco's newly-elected district attorney.

You can watch full episodes of This Week in Northern California and get more information on its website, thisweek.kqed.org.