KQED Announces Steven Cuevas and Scott Detrow as Los Angeles and Sacramento Bureau Chiefs

Award–winning investigative journalist and frequent The California Report contributor Cuevas returns to KQED after positions at KUT Austin and KPCC in the Inland Empire.

Award–winning political reporter Detrow joins KQED from Pennsylvania, where he covered politics and government at the state capital for NPR’s StateImpact project and at WITF and WHYY.

KQED Public Radio, the most listened-to public radio station in the nation, is proud to announce two award-winning and respected journalists as its Los Angeles and Sacramento bureau chiefs. Steven Cuevas, who was named the radio journalist of the year in 2012 by the LA Press Club, takes over the LA bureau and Scott Detrow, who received the DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton in 2012, will take over the Sacramento bureau chief position. Along with Fresno Bureau Chief Sasha Khokha, this team constitutes the backbone of KQED’s statewide news service The California Report.

“We are excited to announce the appointments of two new bureau chiefs for The California Report,” said Jo Anne Wallace, vice president and general manager of KQED Public Radio. “Detrow and Cuevas each brings years of award-winning journalism and great storytelling experience to their new assignments.”

“It’s a real honor and privilege to rejoin longtime friends and colleagues at a station that gave me my start, and on a program that continues to illuminate the politics, culture and history of this great state,” said Cuevas, who started in the Los Angeles bureau on January 14. “Los Angeles and the greater Southern California region are a big, messy, beautiful place that is a dream for any reporter.”

“I'm thrilled to be joining KQED, and excited about covering the largest state government in the country,” said Detrow, who will start his new position as the Sacramento Bureau Chief on February 11. “It's an interesting time to be digging into California politics, and I look forward to getting started.”

Steven Cuevas will be based in downtown Los Angeles and will cover a vast region from Los Angeles to the suburbs of the Inland Empire and beyond. A native San Franciscan, Cuevas’s journalism career began with KQED 17 years ago as an intern with The California Report. After reporting for The California Report for a time, he helped establish the first public radio newsroom at KUT in Austin and returned to California in 2005 to establish the first Inland Empire Southern California news bureau for NPR affiliate KPCC. In 2008, Steven won an RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting and was named radio journalist of the year by the LA Press Club. He’s won numerous other journalism awards from the Radio & Television News Association, the Associated Press and Society for Professional Journalists.

Scott Detrow, who comes to KQED from Harrisburg, PA, will be based at the KQED bureau in downtown Sacramento, where he will cover state politics and policy and report on a wide variety of governance issues. In his most recent position at NPR's StateImpact project, Detrow covered the economic and environmental consequences of the state’s shale drilling boom. Before that, he covered the state capitol for WITF, WHYY and other Pennsylvania public radio stations. In December, Detrow won the DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton for his work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. The judges wrote that the StateImpact Pennsylvania project, “showed the significant impact of natural gas drilling on Pennsylvania residents, and is an important model for reporting on local issues.” He also won a national Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on a Pennsylvania National Guard brigade's deployment to Iraq. He attended two schools with great public radio stations, graduating from Fordham University, and working toward a master's degree at the University of Pennsylvania.

KQED serves the people of Northern California with a public-supported alternative to commercial media. Home to the most listened-to public radio station in the nation, one of the highest-rated public television services and an award-winning education program, and a leader and innovator in interactive technology, KQED takes people of all ages on journeys of exploration — exposing them to new people, places and ideas.