Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. Wildlife experts warn of work to be done to limit the spread of wildlife-borne diseases.
Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. Bay Area counties to further relax their shelter-in-place orders.
CounterSpin provides a critical examination of the each week’s major news stories, and exposes what the mainstream media may have missed in their own coverage. Produced by the national media watch group FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting).
To Apply
Due to the pandemic, the Operations Department Internship Program is on hold until further notice. Please check this page in April or October of 2021 for updates. Once we are able to start, we will post application submission dates here.
Email cover letter and resume to [email protected] by (Date TBD) for the January-June session, or by June (Date TBD) for the July-December session.
Operations Department Intern Description
KPFA 94.1 FM, Berkeley, CA 94704
Classification: internship
Compensation: Unpaid
KPFA 94.1 FM is looking for an experienced, self-motivated Operations Department Intern/s and offers a 6-month training program intended to give individuals valuable “hands on” experience and exposure to radio production. Applicants must be interested in long-term exposure to multiple aspects of Media Production at KPFA Radio. Applicants are willing to work hard, have great organization and time management skills, are attentive to detail and have the ability to multi-task in a moving and deadline driven environment. This is an excellent opportunity for individuals who want to learn from working professionals in a 70-year old radio institution.
INTERNSHIP SUMMARY
As an intern, the primary responsibility is to assist Operations Department staff with daily station tasks. Daily tasks include: line producing for live shows, engineering studio recordings, editing and mixing taped programs, producing station promos, monitoring program content to comply with station and FCC policies and other duties as assigned.
Interns are required to work 1 day shift per week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday 10am-4pm). Fridays from 10am-4pm will be dedicated to radio production classes that work toward producing content on 98.3 KPFB-FM in Berkeley, and on Area 941 podcasts.
Toward the end of the program, interns will be tested for certification to be potential fill-in technical producers at KPFA.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
On-Air
Assist Technical Producers with peripheral equipment for live programs.
Assist Producers with specialized equipment setup for live programs.
Assist with regulating the timing of programs for live and taped shows.
Receive and screen incoming calls during broadcast.
Notify Chief Operator about any abnormalities noticed during scheduled shift.
Off-Air
Engineer studio recordings, support staff for content prep and production.
Edit/mix audio content for playback and prepare evergreen shows.
File CDs, and maintain the studio area in neat and professional manner.
Accurately log discrepancies and troubleshoot technical problems.
Other duties as required by management.
Maintain a positive and cooperative rapport with staff, management, and clients
Represent Pacifica Foundation and 94.1 KPFA-FM in the highest regard within the community and business environment
Develop and maintain effective communications with internal and external partners
Work in compliance with station policies and procedures
QUALIFICATIONS
Skills & Abilities Required
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Proficient in document editing applications such as Office and LibreOffice
Attentive to detail plus great organization and time management skills
Strong customer service and interpersonal skills
Able to work independently as well as part of a team
Strong time management in order to meet multiple daily deadlines
Self-motivated, positive, and highly organized individual
Previous experience with data entry and any audio editing software a plus
Education Required
High School Diploma
Job Type: Internship
Experience:
Organizational Skills: 1 year
Records Management: 1 year
Administrative Support: 1 year
Education: High school
Location: Berkeley, CA
Required work authorization: United States
KPFA is an equal opportunity employer and will not tolerate discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, disability, ethnicity, national origin, marital status, protected veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected classification or status.
Kaya Sakamoto was born and raised in Santa Monica, California. She fell in love with the idea of working in radio while attending community college and soon began interning at her local public radio station, KCRW. Since then she transferred to UC Berkeley where she studied the cross section between society and the environment, spending a semester in Chile to gain a more multicultural understanding of sustainability. During her time at Cal, she also volunteered with KALX as a news reporter and again at KCRW as a morning news intern. Outside of radio, Kaya loves to be doing anything outdoors, from hiking and backpacking to climbing or even just relaxing on the beach. Combining her interests in radio and the environment, Kaya hopes to pursue a career in environmental journalism.
Prema Jackson –
Prema Jackson – KPFA Intern
Prema Jackson was born and educated in Michigan, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Speech and Dramatic Arts from Eastern Michigan University. Deeply involved in the civil rights struggle of the times, she soon realized that the depth and intensity of her anger and frustration would only lead to her incarceration, institutionalization or death. She understood that in order to be a true catalyst of lasting change, she would have to find a core of deep peace which could weather any storm.
Prema chose theater as her vehicle for change, after which a series of mystical events led her to her own path to peace. Proceeding along this path, she is committed to sharing whatever peace and inspiration may be found – with respect for all people, all religions and all life on earth – as we continue our efforts to create a more just and equitable world.
Peter Stickney –
Peter Stickney – KPFA intern
Peter Stickney is currently a KPFA operations intern.
He has always been interested in how things work. He has been involved in audio production since he was in grade school. From church and school productions. Including full choir, orchestra and drama productions. Later adding videography and live streaming to his toolbox.
His first editing project was at the age of 13. He took an 8mm film and a cassette tape with interviews that were on the film. He created a synced audio master with music when there wasn’t dialogue on the film. Most recently he has been working on a project Faces of Our Elders – doing video interviews of senior citizens. Collecting their wisdom and stories before they are gone forever.
mikO Tolliver –
mikO Tolliver – KPFA Intern
Instagram & Twitter: @mikotolliver
My name is mikO and everything I do is so amazing. I’m a songwriter and produce videos. I’m from the Bay Area and work as a freelance artist. I have a degree in English from Mills College and released 2 independent albums. For KPFA, I’ve been working on a music program, “ORCA,” that provides tours and live performances from the KPFA live engineering studio. I produce videos including the station’s 70th anniversary video. My music program, ROCK STAR GUITAR ACADEMY, has taught after school music and gives performances. I work as a voice actress and write grants for a web series. I’m also working on learning documentary filmmaking.
Tanaya Landry –
Tanaya Landry – KPFA Intern
My name is Tanaya Landry. I’m from Salinas, Ca. I moved to the Bay Area in 2016 to finish my degree in Communication Studies at Cal State East Bay. After a year in school, I realized I wanted to keep learning about audio. One of my teachers, Kevin Pina, introduced me to KPFA. I reached out about an opportunity to intern and now I’ve had the opportunity to intern with KPFA twice.
Kyle Gustafson –
Kyle Gustafson – KPFA Intern
Instagram: @hatbrackets
I’m Kyle (they/them), a reformed chemical engineer putting my technical skills to work in community radio!
Benjamin Tyson –
Benjamin Tyson – KPFA Intern
The huge vision for me is to become an audio engineer. It’s been an obsession of mine since I was in middle school around the same time I first stepped foot into the bedroom studio my buddy, Dan Wallace, recorded out of. Dan was a very talented Christian music producer and strictly recorded Christian artist. I learned from Dan the basics of recording and cleaning up vocals.
Fast forwarding after high school, I snagged an internship at Youth Radio learning Photoshop basics. That was a huge opportunity to be inside Youth Radio because you had access to all these people that were writers, programmers, and audio engineers open to take young interns under their wings. After Photoshop class, I would sit in on Brandan AKA (1- O.A.K) recording of other interns and just observe. Later on, I assisted Brandon and a couple of other interns in the recording of Youth Radio’s first Mixtape.
Currently, I’m enrolled in the Operations Department Training Program at KPFA. So far we’ve learned how to record our own podcast, edit radio shows, and right now, we are learning audio engineering basics from David Ogilvy and how to create a podcast from Kevin Pina.
Jose Gonzalez –
Jose Gonzalez – KPFA Intern
My name is Jose Gonzalez and I am a participant in KPFA’s Operation Department Internship Program. My family immigrated to Oakland from Mexico when I was a small child and I have called the Bay Area “home” ever since. I graduated from Alameda High school and worked at Fenton’s Creamery for almost 10 years before I made the difficult decision to pursue other opportunities. I enjoy taking photos, filming and editing YouTube videos, listening to radio shows and seeing live music. After finding a path to adjust my legal status, I decided to pursue further education. I graduated from UC Berkeley in 2018 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Media Studies and am now searching for opportunities to realize my dream of working in the field of radio. I love spending my free time with my family and my 12-year-old rescue Chiweenie, Bambi.
Darlene Pagano –
Darlene Pagano – KPFA Intern
Twitter and Instagram @BauboLaughing
I’ve been a KPFA listener since 1975. I woke up that first morning in town to a radio set to 94.1fm and what I heard was NOTHING I had ever heard on radio before. (It was a song about how “Vietnam will win”. It took me a verse or two to realize the praise was given to the bravery of NORTH Vietnam. Wow!!) I pretty much never changed the dial. I had moved to the Bay Area from Dade County FL (now named Miami Dade Co.), a back-back-back water conservative locale, hoping to find “my people” of progressive thinkers and committed social change activists. And find them I did. For the next 42 years I worked in collectives, cooperatives, progressive businesses and worker-owned shops, I lived my dream life managing book stores, and then moving on to activist non-profit work in Racial Justice. Over the years I had been a guest a few times on KPFA because of my work and had briefly been recruited to work behind the scenes on a monthly Feminist book review program. (I edited tape which involved Headphones, a cutting block, razor blades and sticky tape.) Moving ahead now to my approach to retirement age, and being asked repeatedly as to what I was going to do “after”. The answer came effortlessly: I want to produce radio shows and KPFA is the place to do so.
Jordan Christopher Hankston –
Jordan Hankston – KPFA Intern
I’m a 22 years old who was born in Hayward California, and have lived in Oakland California ever since. The city’s Skyline high school is where I discovered my passion for music production, engineering and audio in general. While attending community college I began to seek out internships to gain more experience with audio in a professional setting, to which KPFA delivered.
“The staff of KPFA are without a doubt some of the most kind, dedicated and passionate people I have met, this is reflected in the supportive work environment of the station. In my time as an Operations Department intern I gained invaluable experience as an on air sound engineer, refined my skills as audio editor and became acquainted with a plethora of recording equipment and Digital Audio Workstations. Now a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, I feel that the experience I gained at KPFA played a direct role in my selection for the university’s competitive electronic music program.”
Shan Hathaway –
Shan Hathaway – KPFA intern
Shan joined KPFA’s Operations Department as an intern in 2019. Since graduating, he can usually be found helping current interns clean background noise out of their audio, taking classes, or editing one of several podcasts he helps produce as a side business.
“The Operations department is one of the the most excellent groups of people I have ever been a part of and the technical skills I acquired helped me start my own small audio business, whatever you’re looking to accomplish KPFA is a good start.”
Stephen Wells –
Stephen Wells is currently a student in the Master of Science program in Recording Arts (Emphasis in Media Forensics) at the University of Colorado Denver’s National Center for Media Forensics. After 20 years in his previous field, Stephen felt it was time for a change. He also felt that audio needed to be a part of such change. Stephen reached out to KPFA for an internship position to help him weigh some options. The internship helped to bring into focus his new direction: part multimedia and part forensic science. Stephen holds two undergraduate degrees.
In his spare time, Stephen enjoys playing and recording music, the noise from which his wife nobly endures. And, he enjoys recreational ski racing with said wife, who is known to beat him gleefully down the hill.
“KPFA customized my internship program to match my capabilities and needs. The staff was authentic, enthusiastic and encouraging, and the program was well organized and quite challenging. Highly recommended!”
The Operations Department Training Program is an immersive, hands-on training ground based at community radio station 94.1 KPFA/Pacifica Radio in Berkeley, CA. Our goal is to empower diverse voices from local communities to become skilled media professionals, while creating unique and thought-provoking live and pre-produced audio and multimedia content.
Vision
For the Operations Department Training Program Graduates to be active participants and groundbreakers in an ever changing media landscape.
Background History
In 2018, a high school student Ricardo Gonzalez emailed the General Manager, Quincy McCoy, inquiring about a summer internship program at KPFA Radio. Quincy forwarded that email to Operations Manager Antonio Ortiz and urged him to create an internship for this young person because they made the effort to email the General Manager and had a convincing cover letter. At the time, the Operations Department had no interns and was understaffed, but there was a need for more people to learn radio production and support the station by doing necessary station tasks. On the third day of the internship, the Program Director Kevin Cartwright came into Antonio’s office asking for assistance on a 14-hour July 4th special. The following day, Ricardo Gonzalez was editing the 14-hour broadcast with the guidance of the Program Director.
That experience showed Antonio how important it was to have interns at KPFA during business hours when opportunities to work on content for air is the most abundant. From that point, Antonio brought in a Fall Intern, Tanaya Landry, who edited and mixed a podcast on Area 941 with content Producer Mukta Patil for her show California In Flux, a podcast that focuses on how climate change is affecting California’s people, places and things.
From there, the third group of interns – mikO Tolliver, Kyle Gustafson and Hallie Smith – participated in the first official 6-month program where all three became KPFA certified fill-in technical producers, which meant they qualified to get paid fill-in work through the Operations Department.
Currently, we are in the 6th iteration of the Operations Department Training Program with 9 trainees who are getting hands-on experience AND take production classes for radio, voice work, live music engineering and podcasting. As the program grows, more classes will be offered for the continued development of students. From this background history, we are excited for the training program to expand to be able to serve the needs of burgeoning content producers.
Operations Department trainees will get hands on experience in the following:
Editing pre-produced content for future broadcast.
Recording content at KPFA’s Main Production studio for future broadcast.
Line-Producing for Live Shows.
Running the On Air Board for Live Shows.
Promoting content on the station’s website and social media.
Program Description
Operations Department Training Program
The KPFA Operations Department Training Program is a 6-month program designed to train and integrate individuals interested in learning and doing radio production. Interns will learn (and apply) the skills of multi-track digital audio editing, engineering studio recordings, media management, website and social media content posting and promotion, line producing and board operating live radio programs.
Internship sessions: January-June and July-December
Commitment: 12 hours per week, 2 days a week.
Day 1: 10am-4pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday
Day 2: 10am-4pm Friday – Internship meeting date, radio production training and content creation.
KPFA equipment and resources are accessible to all KPFA Interns and Staff members who want to learn and apply the basics of radio production from initial concept to distribution. Classes include: studio engineering, live music engineering, board operating, radio production, radio documentary production, podcasting, field production, digital audio editing, audio cleaning, voice acting, improvisation for radio, interviewing techniques, social media marketing and more.
Classes take place February-March and August-September. All participants are required to complete segments, podcasts, live music shows or any other content for broadcast on the B-Side.
Antonio Ortiz is a media professional with 15 years experience working for listener sponsored KPFA Radio, where he has produced radio segments, engineered live national and local broadcasts and provided technical support to programming staff. He is currently KPFA’s Operations Manager and he joined the KPFA community in 2004 through the First Voice Apprenticeship Program as an apprentice. Ortiz has also spent a few years working as a Technical Producer for Free Speech Radio News, a nationally syndicated new program which relied on various international reporters to cover issues within their communities. In addition to his work in radio, he has 7 years experience in Public and Government Access TV, Berkeley Community Media, working on live and taped local programming and post production work. Ortiz also studied acting at Studio ACT, Berkeley REP School of Theater and Second City Chicago Training Center Immersion courses and he has 16 years experience in dance, first with Ballroom Dance and then American Clogging and Salsa just to name a few. He is also a graduate of UC Berkeley with a BA in Comparative Literature. Education and personal/creative growth are important to Ortiz and he looks forward to supporting each individual that goes through the Operations Department Internship Program.
Erica Bridgeman is a graduate of the KPFA Apprenticeship Program who has worked in the realm of radio broadcast and communications since 1999. Erica has hosted, produced, and engineered for many local and national programs as well as conducted numerous trainings, workshops, and continuing education in production, broadcast, and station regulations. She holds a Masters degree in Communication from California State-East Bay.
Instructors
JoAnn Mar is an independent public radio producer. Her documentaries and features have aired on NPR, the BBC, Voice of America, The Charles Osgood File, and Pacifica Radio. Mar has won the prestigious George Polk award in 2006 for investigative reporting on prison privatization. She was the recipient of a 2007 media fellowship from the Open Society Institute and produced an award-winning documentary on California’s prison crisis. Most recently, Mar received fellowship grants for reporting on end-of-life care from the Association of Health Care Journalists, the New America Media/Geronotological Society of America, and USC Annenberg’s Center For Health Journalism.
Toni Orans is a classically trained actor, voice talent, narrator and coach having acted for more than 50 years! Hailing originally from NY, she trained both there (HB Studios) as well as a 3-year course in London at East 15 Acting School, living in Europe for seven years. Upon returning to the States, she lived in the Bay Area for 12 years acting in different companies and teaching drama workshops at Fort Mason. She recently returned to the Bay Area after living on the Mendocino Coast for 23 years where she performed in numerous plays and started to work as a professional voice talent in her own studio as well as doing a live story hour on KZYX for seven years. Now living in the East Bay, Toni’s continuing her voice coaching as well as acting in independent films.
Kevin Pina has worked in audio and video broadcasting for the past 30 years. He is currently the senior producer and regular guest host on the KPFA/Pacifica Radio program, Flashpoints. Pina also currently teaches podcasting and radio classes at California State University-East Bay in Hayward, California.
David Ogilvy has spent over 40 years in recording studios and radio broadcasting, working with artists such as Mr. Bungle, Charles Brown, and Tupac Shakur. Experience interviewing and recording bands live naturally followed. He taught recording production at SAE Expressions College for twelve years and trained Stanford students in disc-jockeying.
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