January 23, 2014
Contact: Maria de Jesus Gomez
559-455-5782, chuyag@legacy.radiobilingue.org
Distinguished Línea Abierta Public Radio Program Adds New Weekly Hour on KIQI San Francisco Today
Federal Guidelines to End Racial Discrimination in School Discipline Featured
Línea Abierta – the only national Spanish language talk show produced in U.S. public radio, debuts an added weekly hour for San Francisco Bay Area airwaves and audiences today, Thursday, January 23, with a program on the Obama administration’s just unveiled national school discipline guidelines calling for an end to “zero-tolerance” policies. The program features interviews with a U.S. Department of Education official on the President’s call to reverse high school suspensions and expulsions disproportionately impacting the education of African American and Latino students, and with a Los Angeles community advocate working for reforms in L.A. Unified, home of the largest school police force in the nation.
Produced and distributed by the Radio Bilingüe National Latino Public Radio Network based in Fresno and Oakland, today’s Línea Abierta program will air from 4 to 5 PM PT on KIQI 1010 am San Francisco (reaching from San Jose to Santa Rosa) and its sister station KATD 990 am Sacramento. This Thursday timeslot will become regular for Línea Abierta on KIQI-KATD, joining another weekly Línea Abierta on KIQI-KATD each Saturday at 12 noon PT.
Suspensions and expulsions are a high determiner of problems including substance abuse, unemployment and prison, and today’s Línea Abierta on KIQI explores this crisis and solutions being proposed. In unrolling its new guidelines, the White House said “racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem” and has raised the hopes of student and parent advocates calling to replace what is being called a police culture in many schools with restorative justice programs that keep students on their educational path and off the “school-to-prison-pipeline.”
The expanded broadcasts of Línea Abierta on KIQI-KATD are made possible by a new grant to Radio Bilingüe from The San Francisco Foundation in order for Spanish speaking Bay Area audiences to benefit from Radio Bilingue’s award-winning journalism, public affairs and cultural programming enjoyed by audiences in more than 70 markets throughout the U.S. For nearly two decades, Línea Abierta has been the first and only Spanish language talk show in the public broadcasting system, featuring politics, health, immigration, the arts and other current topics through dialogues with top newsmakers, decision makers and Latino community members throughout the nation.
Hugo Morales, founder and executive director of Radio Bilingüe, says “The urban Latino Spanish-speaking residents of Northern California are among the most underserved in terms of the mission and mandate of public broadcasting. Radio Bilingüe has been producing meaningful journalism on Latino issues ignored by other media for 27 years, but a broadcast partner in the competitive Bay Area has been elusive. At last audiences from San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento and Santa Rosa are receiving programming that rises to their intelligence and responds to their concerns.”
The Radio Bilingüe partnership at KIQI is being facilitated by the station’s Hecho en California, a group of independent radio producers programming out of this AM station that broadcasts Spanish-language talk and public affairs programming for a potential audience of 1.5 million Latinos throughout the San Francisco Bay area. In addition to the San Francisco Foundation’s support of the broadcast, today’s Línea Abierta program is part of a Radio Bilingüe education series funded by The California Endowment.
Radio Bilingüe is a national Latino-controlled non-commercial radio network and the prominent producer of Latino-oriented programming in public broadcasting. Founded in 1977, Radio Bilingüe owns and operates seven FM public radio stations in California and an additional six in the Southwest, a national satellite programming service, and streams live at radiobilingue.org. In addition to Línea Abierta, Radio Bilingüe produces the daily Noticiero Latino and weekend Edición Semanaria, the only Spanish language newscasts in public broadcasting, featuring reports from journalists based throughout the U.S. and Latin America and carried by more than 70 affiliate stations nationwide.
Funds for Radio Bilingue and Línea Abierta are provided in part by The Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Marguerite Casey Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, The California Endowment, the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the W-K Giving Fund, the Gerbode Foundation, the Christensen Fund, the San Francisco Foundation, and others.
For further information, please contact María de Jesús Gómez at559-455-5782, chuyag@legacy.radiobilingue.org
