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