Jonathan C. Rice; Promoted Local News on Public TV Stations
Jonathan C. Rice, 85, pioneering co-founder of San Francisco’s public television station KQED who promoted local news programming, died Sunday in San Francisco.
Likened in PBS circles to Abraham of the Bible’s book of Genesis, Rice founded the station with James Day in 1954. Shortly after San Francisco’s newspaper strike of 1968, Rice inaugurated “Newsroom,” a local news program employing striking newspaper reporters discussing the day’s news events.
The successful newscast spurred imitators, and by 1970 one-fourth of all public television broadcast hours were devoted to the format of news reporters interacting before the camera.
Rice also helped create the on-screen auction as a fund-raising program for PBS stations.
Born in St. Louis, Rice earned a journalism degree at Stanford and was a Marine combat correspondent and news photographer in the Pacific during World War II. He was news chief of KTLA-TV in Los Angeles before moving to San Francisco to start KQED.
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