Jonathan Rice (1916 – July 22, 2001) was an American public television station and network executive, who, with James Day, co-founded the San Francisco public television station KQED. Rice was born in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

, graduated from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1938 with a degree in journalism, and started his career in San Francisco as a photographer and reporter. He covered World War Two from Honolulu as a Marine correspondent. After the war, he was picture book editor for ''Look'' Magazine in New York in 1947-48, and news and special events editor for KTLA-TV in Los Angeles. In 1953 he returned to San Francisco, where he was recruited by James Day to create KQED. Rice remained the program director of KQED until 1978 and served as a board member until 1996. KQED's legacy society is created in his name. Rice was recognized as an innovator in the public television industry. He is credited with inventing the on-air fundraising auction format and the informal, in-depth approach to news coverage utilized by KQED's ''Newsroom''. During his career he was recognized with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Ralph Lowell Medal and the

National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) is an American professional service organization founded in 1955 for "the advancement of the arts and sciences of television and the promotion of creative leadership for artistic, edu ...

's Governor's Award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rice, Jonathan 1916 births 2001 deaths American television journalists PBS people Stanford University alumni American male journalists Journalists from California 20th-century American journalists