How does KQED stay connected to our audiences?How does KQED stay connected to our audiences?
Nearly half of Bay Area residents use KQED each week — more than 2.6 million across public radio, public television, online and mobile. To ensure that we’re reflecting our communities’ needs and perspectives, we use a variety of approaches, including:
- Asking you, especially about the issues that matter most to you. Here’s what happened when Bay Curious asked for your questions about homelessness, for example — and Bay Curious exists to regularly take your questions on all kinds of topics. With the help of the KQED Lab, our in-house innovation center, which regularly invites audience members to KQED, we’ve also asked you how we’re doing with our coverage and our shows, and whether we’re on the right track with our new products and services.
- Inviting you to share your views on topics of interest in our Perspectives radio series and inviting you to participate in Check, Please! Bay Area, in which local diners visit restaurants anonymously and critique each other’s choices.
- Working with our Community Advisory Panel (CAP), a group of up to 24 people appointed by the board of directors. CAP members broadly represent the communities we serve and advise the board as to whether the programming and services meet the specialized educational and cultural needs of the communities we serve in an authentic and relevant way. CAP members also share story ideas with our editorial leaders. And, when a story moves our audiences to want to act, CAP members work with them to do so. As an example, see this story about KQED listeners offering help to a homeless college student.
- Working with our Youth Advisory Board (YAB), consisting of high school students from across the Bay Area. YAB members provide feedback on new products and content, as well as current KQED media and education tools, and also help produce our YouTube series Above The Noise. We also incorporate youth voices in other ways. April 2018 brought our first-ever youth takeover. For a week, KQED programs featured stories pitched, produced and reported by students from high schools across the Bay Area.
- Interacting with our audiences on social media (find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram). We’ve asked you to share your stories about Vietnam, #metoo and more — and what you’ve shared has helped us cover those stories with nuance and complexity.
- Holding events. For example, in March 2018, we hosted a debate between San Francisco mayoral candidates. From time to time, we take Forum, our weekday call-in program, on the road. Those are just some of the dozens of ways you can connect with KQED in person.
Do you have needs we could be meeting, but aren’t? Let us know in the form below.
Table of Contents
An introduction to KQED’s standards and practicesWho is KQED, and what do we do?
What are our editorial policies and practices?
What do we ask of you, our audience?
How does KQED stay connected to our audiences?