KALW Public Media

KALW Public Media is the nonprofit that runs KALW 91.7 FM, a non-commercial public radio station and NPR member station serving the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area. The station began broadcasting on September 1, 1941, three decades before NPR was created, and was the first FM station on the West Coast. Its broadcast license has been held from the start by the San Francisco Unified School District. KALW Public Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with its own volunteer board, is responsible for the station’s operation, fundraising, distribution and administration under a production services agreement with the district.

KALW produces local news, music and conversation alongside programming from NPR, American Public Media, PRX and the BBC World Service. Its own programs include the weekday call-in show Your Call and the news magazine Crosscurrents, and KALW Music carries DJ-hosted music programming and the KALW Presents live concert series. The station hosts town halls, concerts, screenings and panel discussions at its studios and event space in downtown San Francisco, and it is the birthplace of 99% Invisible and Radio Ambulante.

Training is central to KALW’s work. The station created the first FM broadcast training program in the country, and today it runs the tuition-free Audio Academy, a summer journalism training program, the Teen Podcasting Institute, and the Uncuffed radio training program inside San Quentin and Solano state prisons.

KALW hires for news production and reporting, music programming, digital engagement and social media, live events, and fundraising, and its newsroom works with freelance reporters paid by the story. Staff work from the station’s offices at 988 Market Street in San Francisco.