James Day (December 22, 1918 – April 24, 2008) was an American

public television Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

station and

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

executive and on-air interviewer, and professor of television broadcasting at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

. Day was a co-founder, and the founding president and general manager, of pioneer San Francisco public television station KQED, and in 1969 became the final president of

National Educational Television National Educational Television (NET) was an American non-commercial educational, educational terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Ford Foundation and later co-owned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It o ...

(NET) before it closed operations in 1970, making way for its successor, the

Public Broadcasting Service The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...

(PBS). Day then became general manager of NET's now-former flagship, New York PBS member station

WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as "Thirteen" (stylized as "THIRTEEN"), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the ...

. Day was an original PBS board member, and was also a founding board member of the

Children's Television Workshop Sesame Workshop (SW), originally known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), is an American nonprofit organization that has been responsible for the production of several educational children's programs—including its first and best-know ...

, creators and producers of ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) a ...

'', which quickly became a "

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the fi ...

" children's program for public television. Day was born in

Alameda An alameda is a Avenue (landscape), street or path lined with trees () and may refer to: Places Canada *Alameda, Saskatchewan, town in Saskatchewan **Grant Devine Dam, formerly ''Alameda Dam'', a dam and reservoir in southern Saskatchewan Chile ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and died in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. One of Day's innovations at KQED was the local news program ''Newsroom'', developed in response to a strike in early 1968 by San Francisco newspaper workers; ''Newsroom'' launched the careers of several broadcast journalists, and as the first nightly news program on a public television station, was considered a primary influence and forerunner to what is now ''

PBS NewsHour ''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virg ...

''. (The program still airs, in slightly different form, on KQED to this day under the name ''KQED Newsroom''.) Day was also considered one of the originators of long-form, one-on-one interviews with various celebrities and public figures. He hosted two programs: ''

Kaleidoscope A kaleidoscope () is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of these mirrors are shown as a regular symmetrical pattern when v ...

'' while at KQED, and ''

Day at Night ''Day at Night'' was a public television interview program airing from 1973-1974, hosted by James Day, former president of both KQED and WNET. They are now available online via CUNY TV. Interviewees include * Alwyn Nikolais, choreographer - Nove ...

'', which he independently produced and syndicated after his 1973 resignation from WNET. Among the numerous figures interviewed by Day were

Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...

Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxley ...

Irving Howe Irving Howe (; June 11, 1920 – May 5, 1993) was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America. Early years Howe was born as Irving Horenstein in The Bronx, New York. He was the son of ...

Eric Hoffer Eric Hoffer (July 25, 1902 – May 21, 1983) was an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, '' The True Believer'' (1951), was wide ...

in 1963, philosopher and author

Ayn Rand Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;, . Most sources transliterate her given name as either ''Alisa'' or ''Alissa''. , 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and p ...

in 1974 and

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

Bibliography

References

James Day Papers
1918 births 2008 deaths People from Alameda, California American television journalists PBS people University of California, Berkeley alumni Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area American male journalists Journalists from California 20th-century American journalists Brooklyn College faculty {{US-journalist-1910s-stub