Podcasts by California Sun Podcast

Eric Porter's history of SFO from 2023-03-23T18:51:24

Eric Porter, the author of "A People's History of SFO," sees the nation's No. 1 ranked large airport, San Franc...

Malcolm Harris's Palo Alto from 2023-03-16T12:54:12

California is on the verge of becoming the 4th largest economy in the world. Its economic and cultural impact ripples around the globe, and taxes on its tech econ...

Susan Straight's California Mecca from 2023-03-09T23:30:40

Southern California is often associated with beaches, bungalows, and opulence, but there is more to the region than Los Angeles and Hollywood. Riverside, San Bernardino, and other often-overlook...

Kanishka Cheng tries to hold TogetherSF from 2023-03-02T14:24:45

Kanishka Cheng, an urban planner, served 15 years in housing and community development in San Francisco government. In this week’s podcast, she shares why she resigned from city government to le...

Lila LaHood is looking for local news from 2023-02-23T13:59:48

Lila LaHood discusses her work as the Publisher of the San Francisco Public Press, an online, radio, and streaming news outlet. Her efforts are part of a growing group of nascent but thriving lo...

Mark Rozzo and an L.A. Time Machine from 2023-02-16T15:47:44

Mark Rozzo, journalist and the author of "Everybody Thought We Were Crazy,...

Peggy Orenstein's pandemic yarn from 2023-02-09T14:15:37

Peggy Orenstein, the Bay Area author, took advantage of her time during the pandemic to embark on a unique adventure at a ranch in Sonoma County. During this conv...

John Gedmark is taking off from 2023-02-02T18:30:48

John Gedmark thinks California can still be a center of aerospace innovation. The founder and CEO of Astranis is building satellites in a building that once produ...

Ali Winston&Darwin BondGraham vs. the Oakland PD from 2023-01-26T14:05:14

Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham, two Bay Area investigative journalists, discuss the systemic corruption and brutality in Oakland's police department, and the m...

Lee Herrick and the power of words from 2023-01-19T05:57:59

Lee Herrick is California's newly minted Poet Laureate. The former Fresno Poet Laureate, he also teaches at Fresno City College and the University of Nevada, Reno...

Erica Gies tells us what water wants from 2023-01-12T20:20:38

Erica Gies returns to the California Sun podcast to talk about the water crisis we face today...one of too much water in all the wrong places. Flash flooding and ...

Erica Hellerstein on "solastalgia" from 2023-01-05T19:56:06

Erica Hellerstein, a Bay Area journalist, talks about "Grieving California," her moving story about the grief of l...

Mark Thompson played the hits...and a lot more from 2022-12-15T13:55:57

Mark Thompson was, for over 25 years, one half of the team of Mark and Brian, hosts of the iconic morning radio show on KLOS-FM in Los Angeles. Their show was a mix of comedy and music, and thei...

Zev Yaroslavsky: 40 years of service to L.A. from 2022-12-07T21:11:17

Zev Yaroslavsky, served 20 years on the LA City Council and 20 years on the LA County Board of Supervisors, a distinguished career unmatched in recent memory. Now a faculty member at the UCLA Lu...

Leighton Woodhouse on mean streets, bad politics, and civilization past its prime from 2022-11-30T22:12:49

Leighton Woodhouse, a Bay Area journalist and filmmaker, looks at homelessness, fentanyl, and the streets of our California cities through the lenses of our recen...

Stephen Galloway on the future of movies from 2022-11-17T14:28:18

Stephen Galloway is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, producer, and dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. He spent nearly three decad...

Sam Quinones on our homelessness and fentanyl election  from 2022-11-03T17:37:51

While homelessness and crime appear to be the issues most driving our elections in California cities this year, it’s fentanyl that is really on the ballot. My gue...

Rabbi Noah Farkas takes on anti-semitism in L.A. from 2022-10-27T18:44:24

Rabbi Noah Farkas serves as the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. A long-time civic leader, he has not been surprised by the recent outbreaks of hate speech on t...

Alex Shultz on how Charles Johnson is striking out with S.F. from 2022-10-20T15:33:24

Alex Shultz, a long-time reporter for SFGATE, has been looking at how San Francisco Giants owner Charles Johnson seems to only be pitching to the right side of th...

Erika Smith on the most corrupt big city in America from 2022-10-13T21:41:39

Los Angeles Times columnist Erika D. Smith looks at the current implosion of the L.A. City Council, the mayoral race, and the city's place in the pantheon of systemic political mismanagement. Sh...

Joe Mathews on Newsom and California from 2022-10-05T20:24:28

Joe Mathews returns to the California Sun podcast to examine what he sees as the folly of Gov. Gavin Newsom's national political ambitions. The longtime California journalist and academic thinks...

Lee E. Ohanian argues that it doesn't have to be like this from 2022-09-28T14:52:41

Some days it seems that the problems of housing and homelessness offset all the good things about California.  People and companies are leaving the state at an al...

Katherine Blunt on the fall of PG&E from 2022-09-14T15:28:21

Katherine Blunt, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has led much of the coverage that has revealed the repeated failures of Pacific Gas and Electric. In her ...

Lydia Chavez and Joe Eskenazi are on a mission   from 2022-09-07T22:46:08

Lydia Chavez and Joe Eskenazi see their independent news site Mission Local as covering a microcosm of San Francisco from...

The Cheech from 2022-09-01T22:40:38

Long before we knew him as a comedian or comic actor, Cheech Marin started collecting Chicano art. The result of that passion is now on permanent display at the C...

Severin Borenstein is all about the energy from 2022-08-24T14:34:45

Severin Borenstein is a professor of Business and Public Policy at UC Berkeley's Haas School ...

Matt Doig responds to Paul Pringle from 2022-08-17T17:27:45

Matt Doig was the assistant managing editor of investigations for the L.A. Times when Paul Pringle pursued his story about disgraced USC medical school dean Dr. Carmen Puliafito. Doig takes issu...

Paul Pringle's story of peril and power in L.A. from 2022-08-11T01:00

Paul Pringle is a long-time investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times and a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. His series of stories uncovering the drug use...

Erica Gies explains why water always wins from 2022-08-02T23:13:29

Erica Gies is a Bay Area native, a National Geographic Explorer, an independent environmental journalist, and the author, most recently, of "Listen

Diane Zimmerman remembers the Nut Tree from 2022-07-27T14:09:53

Diane Power Zimmerman's great grandfather bought the property that would become the Nut Tree. Her grandparents founded and ran the roadside oasis that opened in V...

Gale Holland&Claire Hannah Collins: Inside their LA Times Story on Mckenzie Trahan from 2022-07-20T18:44:35

When L.A. Times reporter Gale Holland and videographer Claire Hanna Collins met Mckenzie Trahan in 2018, she was 22 years old, seven months pregnant, and living in a tent above the 101 Freeway. ...

Jim Hinch on drugs, homelessness, and California policies from 2022-07-14T00:19:10

Journalist Jim Hinch tries to look objectively at what is and isn't working with respect to our state's policies surrounding the nexus of housing and drugs. In a recent story in Listen

Gary Kamiya on what is happening to San Francisco from 2022-07-07T18:34:26

Gary Kamiya, a long-time San Francisco writer and journalist, in a recent article in the Atlantic, zeros in on the tectonic political shifts resulting from San Francisco's voters' recall of thre...

David Koepp turns out the lights from 2022-06-30T18:00:31

David Koepp, one of our most distinguished and prolific screenwriters, turns to the novel for his latest work, "Listen

Alexa Koenig leads U.C. Berkeley's Human Right Center from 2022-06-23T15:55:40

​​Alexa Koenig is using Silicon Valley tech for the prosecution of war crimes. As the executive director of the Human Rights Center at the University of Californi...

Matt Richtel on inspired California from 2022-06-16T17:16

In his new book "Listen

Professor Fernando Guerra: Can L.A. be governed? from 2022-06-09T18:22:10

Fernando Guerra, the founding director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, discusses the aftermath of the primary election and the power of the homeless is...

Gustavo Arellano's guided tour of L.A. politics from 2022-06-02T18:20:27

Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times columnist and host of The Times podcast, provides a personal and provocative view of Los Angeles and Southern California politics. He talks of his ongoing feu...

John Waters reminds us where the wild things are from 2022-05-26T16:15:26

Filmmaker John Waters has long been a fixture in San Francisco. After a very rough week, a conversation with him gives us a few moments of levity courtesy of his sometimes twisted worldview. The...

Carolyn Chen on how work became Silicon Valley’s religion from 2022-05-17T19:01:27

Carolyn Chen, a sociologist and professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, argues in her new book "Listen

Tripp Mickle on how California’s most valuable company lost its soul from 2022-05-12T14:55:36

Long-time tech journalist Tripp Mickle explains how Steve Jobs’s personality defined Apple. He was both a founder and a legend. But his successors, Tim Cook and Jonny Ive each had their own very...

Lettie Teague on Napa Valley's new cash crop from 2022-05-05T16:55:46

Lettie Teaque, a longtime Wall Street Journal wine columnist, created a buzz recently with Listen

Ryan Gattis on 30 years after the L.A. Riots from 2022-04-28T16:45:28

At 3:15 pm on April 29, 1972, as the verdict came down in the Rodney King beating, Los Angeles exploded with another in a long history of race riots. Everyone knew what might happen, but nothing...

John Markoff on Silicon Valley’s own Zelig from 2022-04-20T21:36:23

Long Time Silicon Valley journalist John Markoff unearths the roots of a tree, whose branches include, among others, Ken Kesey, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk. Markoff's new book, "Listen

Thomas Walsh and Karen Maness on the lost art of the Hollywood backdrop from 2022-03-31T20:05:23

Thomas Walsh and Karen Maness are the co-curators of "Art of the Hollywood Backdrop: Cinema's Creative Legacy," Listen

Vanessa Hua is a triple threat from 2022-03-24T16:02:03

Vanessa Hua, a Bay Area native and graduate of Stanford and U.C. Riverside, has focused her extensive writing on issues of immigration, identity, diversity, and parenting. Moving seamlessly betw...

Susan Sorrells and her own desert town of Shoshone from 2022-03-17T14:18:18

Susan Sorrells has been called the “Queen of the Desert” and among a "shortlist of the most interesting people in California.” The Smith College graduate spent time in Liberia with the Peace Cor...

Libby Schaaf’s love affair with Oakland from 2022-03-10T04:52:07

Libby Schaaf is about to complete her second and final term as mayor of Oakland. Unlike a lot of other political jobs, as Willie Brown once said, mayors are judged by results. When Schaaf took o...

Frances Dinkelspiel on the power of local reporting from 2022-03-03T15:17:08

Frances Dinkelspiel is working hard to counter the decline of local reporting. The co-founder of Berkeleyside, Oaklandside, and their parent organization Cityside believes it is more important f...

Peter Hartlaub and the S.F. Chronicle are one from 2022-02-24T16:28:04

Peter Hartlaub and the San Francisco Chronicle are inseparable. Peter delivered the Chronicle as a paperboy in the 1980s, went to work there as a journalist in 2000, and 22 years later, continue...

Sebastian Mallaby on the real power in Silicon Valley from 2022-02-17T16:11:36

The work of Sebastian Mallaby, a financial journalist and author of the new book "Listen

Erich Schwartzel on how China may deal Hollywood a fatal blow from 2022-02-10T16:24:22

Erich Schwartzel has covered Hollywood for the Wall Street Journal for almost a decade. This week, the author of "Listen

Alice Waters delicious conversation from 2022-02-03T05:46:52

Alice Waters is among the most influential restaurateurs of the last half-century. Her legendary Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse gave birth to farm-to-table cuisine and gave California a global...

Mark Fainaru-Wada wrote the book on Barry Bonds from 2022-01-27T15:14:51

Mark Fainaru-Wada was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle when he co-authored "Listen

Marty Nemko on the future of work in California from 2022-01-20T19:16:54

Marty Nemko is one of the premier career counselors in the Bay Area. The long-time host of “Work with Marty Nemko" on KALW in San Francisco, a long-time regular guest on KGO, and a contributor t...

Elizabeth Weil on California's relationship with fire from 2022-01-12T20:16:32

Elizabeth Weil has had a 25-year relationship with California. She’s written about it for years, and her most recent piece, “Listen

Sammy Potter and Jackson Parell’s excellent adventure from 2022-01-06T00:32:16

Sammy Potter and Jackson Parell, two Stanford University students, put their pandemic year to good use. While many of us watched too much Netflix, they took the ultimate outdoor adventure. In 29...

Susan Handy on why not all infrastructure spending is good for California from 2021-12-16T21:11:44

Prof. Susan Handy teaches in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at U.C. Davis. With degrees from U.C. Berkeley, Stanford and Princeton, her research focuses on the relationships ...

Max Chafkin on the "godfather" of Silicon Valley from 2021-12-09T18:02:05

Peter Thiel is considered by many the "godfather" of Silicon Valley. His influence, as a venture capitalist, a political contributor, and a leading alumnus of what has been called the PayPal maf...

Darrell Steinberg thinks he can solve Sacramento's many problems from 2021-12-02T23:59:42

Mayor Darrell Steinberg knows the levers to pull to operate state government. He was a member of the Sacramento City Council, a member of the State Assembly, and a longtime leader in the State S...

Bob Calhoun’s obsession with the gruesome and lurid from 2021-11-18T01:06:24

Bob Calhoun reminds us that while we may be alarmed by rising numbers of homicides in the Bay Area today, the region's history has been far worse. Calhoun, the writer of the popular SF Weekly co...

Dan Walters’ post-pandemic biopsy of California from 2021-11-04T19:49:01

Dan Walters, the dean of state capital journalists, joined us in the first week of the pandemic lockdown, back in March of 2020. After twenty months, he joins us once again to offer a post-pande...

Jassen Todorov tells us stories through music, photography, and flight from 2021-10-28T02:52:55

Jassen Todorov, a music teacher at San Francisco State, has played the violin on some of the world's greatest concert stages. But years ago he got his airplane pilot's license in case the music ...

George Geary on California’s real culinary legacy from 2021-10-20T20:10:36

Nothing defines a culture more than its food. For California, that includes not just California cuisine, but In-N-Out, McDonald's, Bob’s Big Boy, Peet's Coffee, Taco Bell, Pinks, Winchels, Hambu...

Doug Thompson and Robin Kobaly on the thirsty golf courses of the Coachella Valley from 2021-10-14T20:19:38

The Palm Spring region has over 120 golf courses, all of which require irrigation, some as much as 1.2 million gallons of water each night. That's even as residential water rationing begins in r...

Richard L. Brown and California's public employee unions from 2021-10-07T18:08:30

Richard L. Brown is the newly elected leader of California’s largest public employee union, SEIU Local 1000. Brown's controversial campaign promised to take the union, with its more than 100,000...

Michael Hiltzik on the Gilded Age, then and now from 2021-09-30T18:50:25

Michael Hiltzik, an award-winning Los Angeles Times reporter, has been observing and writing about business and technology in California for almost 40 years. In his recent book, "Listen

Gene Slater on the unsavory history of California's real estate industry from 2021-09-23T15:36:12

Gene Slater, a long-time advisor on housing for federal, state, and local agencies and the author of "Listen

Miriam Pawel wraps up the recall and looks at what’s next from 2021-09-16T19:43:22

Mariam Pawel, a Brown family biographer and New York Times essayist, has some final words on the recall vote and what’s n...

Woody Hastings and Jenny Blaker think we have enough gas stations from 2021-09-09T16:16:35

Woody Hastings and Jenny Blaker didn’t like the idea of a new gas station in a rural area of Cotati, in Sonoma County. Their efforts launched a growing statewide movement to stop the constructio...

Lizzie Johnson on how Paradise portends a future written in flames from 2021-09-01T17:44:53

Lizzie Johnson, a former San Francisco Chronicle reporter, covered fifteen of California’s deadliest fires. However, none reached the level of death and destruction that she witnessed in Paradis...

Daniel O’Connell and Scott Peters on local farmers vs. industrial agribusiness in California. from 2021-08-26T17:23:41

Daniel O'Connell, a labor scholar, and Scott Peters, a professor of global development, talk about the historic battle, from the 1930s to the present, between rural farmers and agribusiness in C...

Mizgon Zahir Darby on California's Afghan diaspora from 2021-08-18T19:50:31

Mizgon Zahir Darby, a longtime leader in the Bay Area's Afghan community, helps give voice to the large diaspora of Afghans living in California. She says they are in mourning over recent events...

Jaime Lowe on fighting fires and doing time from 2021-08-05T16:59:41

Jaime Lowe connects us with the female inmates who are battling California's wildfires. In her new book "Listen

Rick Doblin on the value of psychedelics from 2021-07-23T16:47

Rick Doblin, Ph.D., is the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, based in San Jose. He received his doctorate in Public Policy from Harvard...

Katie Hill's second act from 2021-07-20T14:22:07

Katie Hill, once a congresswoman and now a private citizen, has seen a lot of politics in her 33 years. In 2019, in the course of ten months, she lived through what some have experienced in an e...

Supervisor Matt Haney's candid look at San Francisco from 2021-07-14T20:21:45

Matt Haney grew up in the Bay Area. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Stanford and is now a supervisor for San Francisco's 6th district, which includes some of the poorest and wealthiest parts...

George J. Sanchez and the wonder of Boyle Heights from 2021-07-07T21:58:24

George J. Sanchez, a USC professor and author of the new book "Listen

Rosecrans Baldwin’s L.A. embrace from 2021-06-30T16:51:19

Rosecrans Baldwin, a novelist and journalist, adds his unique voice in trying to make sense of what he calls the “city-state” of Los Angeles. He talks about L.A. as welcoming but somehow detache...

Steve Wasserman returns to his roots from 2021-06-16T05:21:07

Steve Wasserman was born and raised in Berkeley, but launched his literary life in Los Angeles, first as deputy editor of the Los Angeles Times then as the long-time editor of the Los Angeles Ti...

Colleen McCain Nelson now leads our capital city's newspaper from 2021-06-09T18:11:37

In January, Colleen McCain Nelson was named executive editor of the Sacramento Bee and the regional editor for McClatchy’s California news outlets, including the Fresno Bee, the Modesto Bee, the...

Mick LaSalle takes California to the movies from 2021-06-03T13:20:50

Mick LaSalle, author of his new book "Listen

Justin Zhu talks startups, LSD, and anti-Asian discrimination from 2021-05-27T17:23:25

Justin Zhu was fired from Iterable, the successful marketing startup he founded. The reasons given to him included his use of LSD, inappropriate attire (even by Silicon Valley standards), and gi...

Denise Hamilton on L.A.’s post-apocalyptic vibe from 2021-05-20T00:29:17

Denise Hamilton is the editor of the just-published anthology "Listen

Joel Selvin on the soundtrack that defines California from 2021-05-13T15:19:25

Joel Selven, a music journalist and author of the new book “Listen

Michael Storper on the L.A. vs. Bay Area conundrum from 2021-05-06T12:58:20

Michael Storper, one of the world's leading economic geographers and a professor at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, goes deep into the history and resulting contemporary problems facing ...

Ron Brownstein on the magic of 1974 Los Angeles from 2021-04-29T13:57:21

The writer Ron Brownstein takes us back to 1974 Los Angeles, a period he views as a cultural and political hinge point. It was during that year — as Brownstein details in his new book, " Listen

Joe Mathews on how L.A. is failing California from 2021-04-21T16:38:04

Joe Mathews, a long-time California journalist, thinks that the state has a big problem, and the problem's name is Los Angeles. Mathews argues that Los Angeles County, home to 25% of the state's...

Matthew Shilvock on the re-emergence of the San Francisco Opera from 2021-04-13T16:52:16

Matthew Shilvock, the general director of the San Francisco Opera, talks about the reemergence of the 1,000-person opera company and how its shutdown during the pandemic could be the catalyst fo...

Molly Knight on baseball in Los Angeles from 2021-03-24T22:48:12

Molly Knight is a long-time sports writer and is a senior staff writer for The Athletic. Her beat covers Los Angeles sports and most notably, the L.A. Dodgers. The author of "The Best Team Money...

Emilio Garcia-Ruiz and the remaking of the S.F. Chronicle from 2021-03-18T16:00:38

Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, the new editor-in-chief of the San Francisco Chronicle, was the managing editor for digital at the Washington Post. He lays out his vision for bringing the Chronicle fully in...

Michael Tubbs still has Stockton on his mind from 2021-03-10T20:00:54

Michael Tubbs was elected to the Stockton City Council at age 22, having just graduated from Stanford. He was elected as the city's first African American Mayor at 27. He sought to reshape the m...

Tess Taylor and her poetry of California from 2021-03-04T19:19:52

Tess Taylor, in her books of award-winning poetry, captures the fragility, fear, and fault lin...

Bradley Tusk on California's corporate exodus from 2021-02-25T17:33:14

Bradley Tusk, bicoastal venture capitalist and political strategist, talks about the political and economic reasons why companies are leaving California. While individuals may be leaving our cit...

Jill Tucker on San Francisco school debates from 2021-02-18T19:42:05

Jill Tucker has been covering education in California and in San Francisco for the San Francisco Chronicle for 22 years. Not until lately however, has she seen school debates grow so intense and...

Shane Bauer on the Vallejo PD from 2021-02-11T15:43:13

Shane Bauer is a Bay Area journalist and author. His recent reporting for The New Yorker examines the violent excesses of the Vallejo police department. What he found and shares with us is a cau...

Roman Mars is anything but invisible from 2021-02-04T01:41:36

Roman Mars, the Bay Area author of the book and podcast series 99% Invisible, is a unique guide to the hidd...

Joan Didion talks about California from 2021-01-28T13:53:30

Upon the occasion of the publication of a new collection of works by Joan Didion, "Listen

Casey Newton on tech platforms as the new town square from 2021-01-21T06:10:43

Casey Newton, a long-time Bay Area-based tech journalist, and the author of the Platformer newsletter looks at our social media platforms and how they have become the foundation of political spe...

Hank Sims on the success of local journalism in Humboldt County from 2021-01-14T18:00:19

Hank Sims, the editor of Lost Coast Outpost, extols the virtues of Humboldt County and explains how his online newspaper has defied the odds faced by most local and regional newspapers.

Kathryn Olmsted talks California unions, from farm to Google from 2021-01-07T13:54:20

Kathryn Olmsted, a historian, author, and former chair of the history department at UC Davis talks about California's long history of farm labor union organizing and how that history affects the...

Heather Knight on the ups and downs of San Francisco from 2020-12-16T15:28:41

The San Franciso Chronicle columnist Heather Knight keeps her finger on the pulse of City Hall. Her twice-weekly stories have exposed issues around education, political corruption, homelessness,...

Tracy L. Chandler on photography, memory, and connection from 2020-12-09T15:52:30

Tracy L Chandler is a photographic artist based in Los Angeles. She talks about her work, which explores fringe communities and addresses themes of seeing and being seen. She examines photograph...

Daniel Lurie and Sam Cobbs on the fight against poverty in the Bay Area from 2020-12-02T00:59:39

Daniel Lurie, the founder of Tipping Point Community, and Sam Cobbs, its CEO, discuss the grant-making organization's efforts to fight poverty in the Bay Area by putting private dollars to work ...

At 25, Alex Lee is California’s youngest state legislator from 2020-11-19T19:19:24

What were you doing at 25? Assembly member-elect Alex Lee, a Democrat from San Jose, is thinking about what he’ll do on his first day in the Assembly. The youngest state legislature in nearly a ...

Gary Kamiya, Paul Madonna, and an unknown city by the bay from 2020-11-10T17:21:51

Gary Kamiya, a San Francisco columnist and bestselling author, and Paul Madonna, an award-winning artist, talk about their new illustrated book "Listen

Chronicle journalists on Propositions 22 and 19 from 2020-11-05T19:54:11