Measured conversations for a complicated public life.
KQED's Forum treats news, culture, politics, books, sports, and money as subjects for patient public conversation. Guests bring expertise, callers add texture, and each hour moves from headline context toward ordinary consequences.
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KQED's Forum is a public conversation show with a wide civic lens. It treats the Bay Area and California as starting points, not limits. Recent episodes move across music, sports, tax policy, war, translation, electoral politics, and misconduct allegations with the same steady method. A question opens the door. Context comes first. Then guests, callers, and examples widen the frame. In one hour, Melvin Gibbs explains Black music through Carnival, musicology, James Brown, and the body-level force of rhythm. In another, a discussion of women's basketball connects early Black women players, segregated opportunity, modern WNBA contracts, and a caller describing a Granny Basketball League that plays by 1920s rules. The show can also turn quickly toward grave subjects. Its Iran coverage brings in Dalia Dasake, Robin Wright, and David Sanger to examine ceasefire language, U.S. leverage, and the risks behind threats against civilian energy infrastructure. Domestic politics gets similar treatment, from Viktor Orbán's defeat after high-profile MAGA support to voter reaction after allegations against Eric Swalwell. Money episodes avoid treating tax law as a spreadsheet exercise. They ask who actually benefits, why tip and overtime provisions can disappoint workers, and how fine print changes household expectations. The cultural range is broad enough to include literary translation as craft, where guests weigh how Spanish, Italian, and English handle grief, reflexive language, and emotional implication. Forum's signature strength is translation in the civic sense: expert language becomes usable without being sanded flat. Callers are not decoration. They often supply the human-scale test of whatever claim is on the table. The pacing is measured, but the subject matter is not soft. It suits listeners who want the news, culture, and public life discussed with patience, evidence, and room for disagreement.
Made for: For listeners who want public affairs, culture, and policy explained with patience rather than heat. It especially fits people who value expert context, caller perspectives, and Bay Area-to-national connections.
What sets it apart: Forum combines expert interviews with live public reaction, so each topic is tested against both analysis and lived experience. Its range is unusually broad, moving from James Brown and literary translation to Iran policy, tax law, and California politics without changing its civic center.
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 [email protected], tweet, or post on Facebook.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Forum brings sports into civic conversation, pairing historical context with questions from people whose lives intersect with the game.
KQED's Forum treats sport as public life, using extended interviews and caller questions to connect competition with history, money and participation.
Taxes, translated grief, and James Brown share one studio; your curiosity gets no single lane.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A public-radio take on women's basketball that links segregation-era struggle to the league's record-setting present.
Forum ties the WNBA's record-setting viewership and attendance to an older era marked by segregation, with players like Ora forced to carve out their own lane. Asia Wilson's three-year, $5 million contract stands out as another marker of how far the league has come.
Carnival, James Brown, and a bass player's long argument about black music.
Forum opens with Melvin Gibbs and his book How Black Music Took Over the World, starting in Brazil with Carnival drumming and then widening into a broader argument about how music works in the body as much as in the mind.
A clear, grounded review of why promised tax savings land unevenly across tipped work, overtime rules, and household plans.
KQED's Forum measures the promise of federal tax refunds against the fine print that decides who actually gets help. Shannon Pettypiece and Karen Brosey lay out why some low-income or part-time tipped workers may not see much change if they already were not paying taxes on tips.
A reflexive suffix turns translation into a question of feeling and how a scene carries it.
Forum treats literary translation as a live editorial problem, where a small grammatical turn can hold an entire relationship to an event. The conversation moves from the American publishing landscape, its educational institutions, and underfunded arts toward a Spanish phrase…
A clear, practical look at crowd wisdom, market manias, and investor overconfidence.
Forum uses Planet Money's new book to think through how economic forces shape everyday choices. Its most useful stretch lands on the stock market and the wisdom of crowds: prices can gather many judgments at once, but they can also drift into mispriced companies and manias when…
Great books, taken chapter by chapter, with delight
Book talk with room to wander.
KQED's Forum examines a family-separation crisis affecting more than 200,000 children after immigrant parents were detained or deported.
Ina Kim opens on the WNBA's expected rise in viewership and attendance.
It starts in Brazil.
This episode analyzes the ongoing war in Iran, discussing recent contradictory statements from U.S.
This episode analyzes Viktor Orbán's surprising electoral defeat in Hungary despite strong support from Donald Trump and J.D.
Forum asks what taxpayers can actually expect from federal tax changes that many hoped would mean larger refunds.
This episode examines the political fallout from sexual misconduct allegations against former Congressman Eric Swalwell, including reactions from voters and the impact on his gubernatorial campaign.
This episode explores the art and economics of literary translation, featuring professionals discussing how foreign works reach American readers and the cultural importance of translated literature.
The economy is introduced as a force that shapes every life.
This episode explores the fight for internet privacy in a world of increasing surveillance, discussing challenges and advocacy efforts.
The host reflects on how the sudden demolition of a familiar building during his daily commute through San Francisco's Mission district jolted him out of autopilot and transformed his perception of the urban landscape.
The host reflects on a warm summer night in the Bay Area, biking through neighborhoods and observing vibrant community life, while hinting at underlying urban troubles.
This episode discusses an impending major heat wave in the western United States as a clear sign of global warming, featuring insights from climate scientist Daniel Swain.