KQED's Forum
Channel Details
KQED's Forum
Forum tells remarkable and true stories about who we are and where we live. In the first hour, Alexis Madrigal convenes the diverse voices of the Bay Area, before turning to Mina Kim for the second hour to chronicle and center Californians’ experience. In an increasingly divided world, Mina and Alex...
Recent Episodes
3313 episodes
Have We Learned How to Talk About GLP1s?
An estimated one in eight Americans has now tried a GLP-1 medication like Ozempic or WeGovy: to lose weight, manage diabetes or experiment with anecdo...
How ‘Muskism’ is Reshaping America
Everyone has an opinion about Elon Musk, who has carved out a uniquely powerful place for himself in the worlds of auto-making, space launch, social m...
Tucker Carlson’s Reversal on Trump Raises Questions for MAGA
Tucker Carlson, the right wing pundit and onetime Donald Trump diehard, now says he regrets supporting the President. Carlson apologized on his show f...
How Can We Better Care for Foster Youth?
The death of a San Jose toddler in foster care has Santa Clara’s child welfare system scrambling to respond and politicians asking what went wrong. Si...
What an Accent Can – and Can’t – Say About You
Everyone has an accent, even people who don’t think they do. That’s according to linguist Valerie Fridland, who studies the way American accents have...
Remembering Classical Music Icon Michael Tilson Thomas
We’ll remember legendary conductor, composer, educator and San Francisco icon Michael Tilson Thomas who died on Wednesday. He served 25 years as music...
When The World Expects Hate, A Palestinian and An Israeli Choose Peace
Aziz Abu Sarah, who is Palestinian, and Maoz Inon, who is Israeli, have both lost family to the conflict in the Middle East. They are also both peaceb...
Why Do Certain Songs and Bands Go Viral?
Some fans of the indie-rock band Geese have been feeling betrayed after learning that TikToks that looked like they were made by fans were actually cr...
M Gessen Reckons with Familial Crime and Punishment
“The Idiot,” a new podcast from Serial and New York Times opinion columnist M. Gessen, shares the story of Gessen’s own cousin, Allen, who went to pri...
The Psychological Toll of Trump’s Immigration Policies on Bay Area Latinos
The Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration has many people feeling self-conscious about speaking Spanish in public or being recognized as La...
Anthropic’s New AI Mythos Is a Cybersecurity Game-Changer
The San Francisco AI firm Anthropic has developed a new model that it says is too powerful to be released to the public. Called Mythos, Anthropic says...
Paying for Graduate School Is Going To Get Harder
Going to graduate school has never been cheap. But sweeping new changes to the federal loan system – which will now have caps on how much you can borr...
Rethinking Healing: Insights from Survivors of Extreme Trauma
Psychiatrist Suzan Song has for decades worked with people who have experienced extreme traumas, like being trafficked or recruited as child soldiers....
CA Prepares for Early Wildfire Season Amidst Slashing of US Forest Service
California’s record-setting heatwave in March caused snow to melt and vegetation to dry out earlier than normal this year. Those conditions could prov...
Celebrating the Players That Made Women's Basketball
The 2026 WNBA season tips off next month. It’s expected to see historic viewership and attendance, after last season’s record-breaking run as the most...
Bass Legend Melvin Gibbs Shows Us 'How Black Music Took Over the World'
Grammy-nominated bassist and composer Melvin Gibbs contends that all music genres popular in the U.S. — pop, country, rock, dance, hip-hop and Latin —...
Viktor Orbán’s Defeat, and the Limits of MAGA Populism
After almost two decades as Prime Minister, Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán was defeated by Péter Magyar, leader of the center-right Tisza party. In t...
What Will it Take to End the War in Iran?
An American naval blockade of Iranian ports entered its third day as the U.S. tries to open up ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, Presid...
Examining the Fallout From Eric Swalwell’s Sexual Misconduct Allegations
Facing sexual misconduct allegations from at least five women, including one former staffer, Bay Area Democrat Eric Swalwell resigned from Congress, w...
Will New Tax Provisions Deliver Promised Big, Beautiful Refunds?
President Trump promised that new tax provisions in his One Big Beautiful Bill would deliver a windfall to millions of Americans. No more taxes on ove...
Planet Money Answers Your Big Economic Questions
NPR’s “Planet Money” has spent years answering economic questions big and small on its flagship podcast and the daily show “The Indicator,” and now th...
Translating the World Through Literature
Books have long transported us to other worlds and lives. But in the American publishing market only a small fraction of books are works in translatio...
Amy Goodman Wants Corporate Media to ‘Steal This Story, Please!’
Thirty years ago, journalist Amy Goodman premiered the daily radio show Democracy Now. Launched on nine community radio stations in 1996, the program...
Division Grows Among U.S. Catholics Over Trump Policies
For decades, the top political issue for many U.S. Catholics has been abortion. But, a recent article in “The Atlantic” argues that the focus has shif...
AI Data Center Opponents Fight Back at Local Level
The fight over data centers is intensifying in California and nationwide as organizers develop new strategies to take on tech companies and developers...
What Can Y2K Tweens from Santa Rosa Teach Us About Childhood Creativity?
In the year 2000, four pre-teen girls in Santa Rosa — three 11-year-olds, and one 9-year-old little sister — wrote and recorded an album inspired by t...
ICE Shifts Strategy, Detaining Thousands of Kids
Last winter, ICE ramped up immigration enforcement in several American cities. It was a strategy that shifted focus from the US Mexico border to the s...
How Apple Has Changed the Bay Area and the World
Today, Apple is a $3.5 trillion company with over 150,000 employees worldwide. Fifty years ago, it was two Steves – Jobs and Wozniak – working out of...
How the Iran War Has Isolated the US From Its Allies
President Trump backed down from his social media threat that “a whole civilization will die” after Pakistan helped broker a ceasefire deal with Iran....
Trump Administration Wants to Replace Cuba’s Government, But What Would Come Next?
High level talks between Cuba and the U.S. are ongoing as the Trump administration’s four-month oil blockade of the island nation continues. Trump has...
Inside California’s Crowded Governor’s Race
California’s jam-packed governor’s primary may lead to a historic political shakeup this fall. Polls show the two leading Republicans, Riverside count...
Why Aren’t Doctors Better At Diagnosing Illnesses?
A 2015 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found that “most people will experience at least one diagnostic error...
How L.A. Cleaned Its Air—and What It Means for Climate Policy Today
Los Angeles was once defined by smog that for decades choked the city with toxic haze. It obscured surrounding mountains and exposed people – especial...
California Farmers Struggle to Weather the Agriculture Crisis
It is a tough time to be a farmer. President Trump’s tariffs last year raised many of the costs of farming and shrunk food exports. Threats of immigra...
Fewer Friends, More Pressure: The State of ‘American Men’
Journalist Jordan Ritter Conn has spent years studying some of the psychological challenges facing men in the United States. These include feelings of...
Why We’re Headed Back to the Moon For the First Time in Half a Century
“We go for all humanity,” remarked Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, moments before the rocket taking him and his crew to the moon launched on Wednes...
Planning to Vote By Mail This November? What Californians Need to Know
President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that aims to place federal restrictions on voting by mail ahead of this fall’s midterm elections....
San Francisco Has Tried to Make its Streets Safer for Pedestrians – Has it Worked?
After a decade of Vision Zero, the effort that aimed to end traffic fatalities and severe injuries, San Francisco saw a drastic decrease in 2025 traff...
In New Book, Sen. Cory Booker Urges Americans to Take a 'Stand'
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker said this weekend that Democrats have “failed to meet this moment” and that his party needed “generational renewal.” Th...
A Close Look at the Earth's Tiniest, and its Most Vast, Wonders
National Geographic Explorer and documentary filmmaker Ariel Waldman challenges our sense of scale in her new PBS series “Life Unearthed” which explor...