KQED's Forum

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 Alexis host conversations that inform, challenge and unify listeners with big ideas and different viewpoints. Want to call/submit your comments during our live Forum program Mon-Fri, 9am-11am? We'd love to hear from you! Please dial 866.SF.FORUM or (866) 733-6786 or email forum@kqed.org, tweet, or post on Facebook.

Episodes

Is It Time to Rethink Pediatric ADHD?

June 27, 2025 • 57 mins
A record high 7 million U.S. children have received an ADHD diagnosis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But journalist Paul Tough wonders if we’re thinking about pediatric ADHD all wrong. For a recent New York Times Magazine feature, Tough spent a year talking to leading researchers who now say that standard treatments like Ritalin only help children behave better, not learn better – and even that effect...
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What’s on Your Summer Reading List?

June 27, 2025 • 57 mins
A warm summer day sitting beneath the shade of a tree or a beach umbrella with a tall cold drink at the ready and a juicy book waiting to be read — what could be better? We’ll talk to booksellers from Booksmith and Green Apple Books as well as Oakland-based novelist Jasmine Guillory about what they are reading this summer, and we’ll hear from you: When you’re not doom scrolling, what’s on your must read list for this summer? Any re...
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Supreme Court Rulings This Term Impact Immigrants, Transgender Youth, EPA Regulations

June 26, 2025 • 57 mins
So far this term the Supreme Court has allowed states to ban gender transition care for youth, made it easier for white people and other “majority” group members to prove workplace discrimination and temporarily cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport people to countries they’re not from. We talk about the impact of these rulings and other cases still to be decided. Guests: Rory Little, professor of constitutiona...
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In Sara Kehaulani Goo’s ‘Kuleana,’ Culture and Capitalism Collide in Hawaii

June 26, 2025 • 57 mins
Author and veteran journalist Sara Kehaulani Goo grew up in Southern California making frequent visits to Hawaii, where her extended family owned a vast and rugged stretch of Maui. The land was granted to an ancestor by King Kamehameha III in 1848 before the U.S.overthrew the island nation’s monarchy. Goo’s family held on to a small section for more than a century, but when their property taxes skyrocketed a decade ago, they had to...
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Israel and Iran Reach Tentative Ceasefire

June 25, 2025 • 57 mins
A fragile ceasefire is in effect between Israel and Iran, just days after the United States intervened in the war by striking Iranian nuclear sites. President Trump is claiming credit, but journalist and Middle East politics expert Robin Wright writes, “the outcome of this war may be shaped more by Iran’s culture and politics than by the military prowess of its opponents.” We look at Iran’s and Israel’s end games and the implicatio...
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Local Media Is Dead. But Not in the Bay Area.

June 25, 2025 • 57 mins
Local media is dying according to headlines. But that is not the case in the Bay Area. Last year the New York Times reported that San Francisco alone had 27 media outlets for its 800,000 residents. And now, four new publications can join that list: Coyote, the Bay Area Current, the Oakland Review of Books and the Approach, all helmed by local writers, reporters and authors. We’ll talk to these media entrepreneurs about what they ho...
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Gen Z Embraces Trades as the College-to-Career Pipeline Cracks

June 24, 2025 • 57 mins
Today’s young workers are rethinking what makes a good job. A new Resume Builder survey finds that more than a third of Gen Z college grads are working in or plan to enter the trades or other skilled blue-collar jobs. Many say they’re seeking relief from rising student debt, and practical roles less affected by AI, including electrical work, plumbing, welding, veterinary care and EMT roles. We talk to workforce experts and members ...
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How Trump's Immigration Crackdown is Playing Out in the Bay Area

June 24, 2025 • 57 mins
The Trump Administration has targeted Southern California for its harshest crackdown on immigrants. For the past few weeks, federal agents have raided restaurant kitchens and Home Depot parking lots and roughed up U.S. citizens, sparking anger and protests across the country. In Northern California, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have arrested immigrants who show up for immigration court hearings. We’ll talk about how the...
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Molly Jong-Fast on 'How to Lose Your Mother'

June 23, 2025 • 57 mins
“As much as I love my mother, I’ve often found myself regarding her with feelings that are somewhat closer to the opposite of love,” writes political analyst Molly Jong-Fast. The mother of which she writes is feminist icon Erica Jong, whose 1973 debut novel “Fear of Flying,” jetted Jong to a level of fame that she spent the rest of her life grasping on to. In 2023, her mother’s declining health and diagnosis for dementia forced Jon...
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As Iran and Israel War Continues, What Does It Mean for the Bay Area Iranian Diaspora?

June 23, 2025 • 57 mins
As the war between Israel and Iran continues, members of the Iranian diaspora in the Bay Area are closely watching as people in Iran are being asked to evacuate amidst travel bans, fuel shortages and internet blackouts. The United States is home to the largest Iranian diaspora outside of Iran, with over fifty percent of that population living in California. We talk with Iranian community members and leaders in the Bay Area about ho...
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Journalist Barbara Demick Traces Decades of Trauma From China’s One-Child Policy

June 20, 2025 • 57 mins
Nearly a decade after the end of China’s one-child policy, families are still reeling from its traumas. In multiple cases, officials in China forcibly took children away from their families and placed them up for adoption, fulfilling a lucrative overseas demand for baby girls. In her new book “Daughters of the Bamboo Grove,” journalist Barbara Demick tells the story of one girl named Fangfang, rechristened Esther, who was taken awa...
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U.S. Weighs Role It Should Play in Escalating Israel-Iran Conflict

June 20, 2025 • 57 mins
President Trump announced on Thursday that in the next two weeks, he would make a decision about the role the U.S. will take in the escalating Israel-Iran conflict. As Israel and Iran traded fire for a seventh day, fissures emerged among Republicans about whether military action is warranted, while some Democrats are urging passage of a bill that would require Trump to get congressional approval before committing American troops an...
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Checking in on California’s Reparations Effort

June 19, 2025 • 57 mins
Two years after the state’s landmark report on reparations for Black residents, where does the effort stand? The California Legislative Black Caucus has put forth bills to address equity issues like unjust property seizures or to help obtain professional licenses, but few bills have cleared the legislature or made it past Governor Newsom’s desk. We look at what progress has been made since the report’s release, and if lawmakers sti...
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Stories of Resistance, Survival and Beauty from the Bay Area’s Trans Community

June 19, 2025 • 57 mins
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law on Wednesday that bans gender-affirming medical care for minors. For many transgender people, the ruling is yet another setback in a long line of attacks on their rights that stretches back through most of human history. And yet, transgender people have created a rich legacy throughout, especially in the Bay Area. Two new projects highlight their stories. One is a KQED series profiling ...
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Can the Left Win Back Working-Class Voters?

June 18, 2025 • 57 mins
Working-class voters don’t just vote for their policy preferences — they vote for the party that feels like “their people.” Increasingly, that’s not the left. In “Outclassed,” UC Law professor emerita Joan Williams argues that America’s widening “diploma divide” is fueling the far right — and that liberals often play into the dynamic without realizing it. To protect democracy and build a durable, multi-racial coalition, Williams sa...
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Rebecca Solnit on Approaching These Times with Hope, Imagination and Perseverance

June 18, 2025 • 57 mins
In her new book of essays, “No Straight Road Takes You There,” writer and activist Rebecca Solnit urges us to not give in to feelings of doom and complacency in threatening political times, but instead to imagine a radically better future. “The most important territory to take is in the imagination,” she writes. “Once you create a new idea of what is possible and acceptable, the seeds are planted; once it becomes what the majority ...
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‘When It All Burns’ Brings Us to the Fireline

June 17, 2025 • 57 mins
For California firefighters battling wildland flames, the work is up close, unrelenting and fueled by a climate growing hotter and drier by the year. Anthropologist and former Los Padres Hotshot Jordan Thomas pulls readers straight into this world in his new book “When it All Burns,” chronicling six months on the frontlines of California’s megafires. We talk with Thomas about what it is like to battle uncontainable destruction and...
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The Long Reach of San Francisco’s Housing Crisis

June 17, 2025 • 57 mins
Scratch at a problem for San Francisco, and you’ll find an issue that underlies almost all of them: the city’s intractable housing crisis. A new documentary “Fault Lines,” on Apple TV follows three storylines connected to the lack of housing. There is a homeless family’s attempts to get into a permanent home, a Sunset neighborhood’s fight over an affordable housing project and the ugly competing campaigns for a ballot measure. We t...
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RFK Jr. Stacks Key Federal Immunization Committee With Vaccine Skeptics

June 16, 2025 • 57 mins
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named multiple vaccine skeptics to the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices last week, after purging the original members of the panel. The move comes after HHS released a report on children’s health questioning the safety of vaccines, while also taking aim at processed food and environmental toxins. We’ll take stock of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” ...
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How Trump’s Trade Deals Could Impact Jobs, Prices and Inflation

June 16, 2025 • 57 mins
After months of sparring over tariffs, the Trump Administration says it has reached a deal with China on  trade negotiations, but many businesses and consumers are still feeling uncertain about the economy. The deal imposes 55% tariffs on most Chinese imports, down from President Trump’s earlier 145% tariffs that would have made it prohibitively expensive for many U.S. businesses to import goods from China, our second-largest tradi...
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