In the opening segment (embedded below), I spoke with a group of high school students from San Francisco about how they think about health: what are they concerned about? Who do they trust for info? How would they raise a healthy teen?

With the help of partner stations and freelance reporters, I also collected answers to the same questions from teens across California, and built an embeddable Flash interactive to showcase their responses. I think the content turned out well. Hopefully, we can use the module as a template for further projects.

The redesign gives us some added features, as well. Most notable to the user, you can now click through to the segment level, meaning that you can bookmark or otherwise share links to a specific segment of a show. You can also leave comments and embed segment audio on your own website. The program archive is also much more functional, with episode listings and descriptions.

From the announcement:

The PASS Awards (Prevention for a Safer Society) is the only national recognition of print and broadcast journalists, TV news and feature reporters, producers, writers, and those in film and literature who try to focus America’s attention on our criminal justice, juvenile justice, and child welfare systems in a thoughtful and considered manner.

The show was produced live from San Francisco General Hospital, and featured interviews that I recorded with host Scott Shafer at San Quentin State Prison. The first hour focused on inmate health care, and the second hour focused on juvenile justice and mental health.

Hour One: Inmate Health Care

Hour Two: Juvenile Justice and Mental Health

I had the fortune of producing the radio news on KQED this morning. We had two reporters in D.C. who called in to give us a feel for what it was like on the ground.

This first piece of audio is this morning’s The California Report. Scott Shafer called in from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, as thousands of people streamed into the area for the inauguration ceremony.

And here is part of the 6:30am Northern California news break, with this morning’s host, Sarah Varney, speaking with reporter Tamara Keith, who was also on location in D.C.

These reports aired a couple of hours before the ceremony, so there wasn’t much in the way of hard news to report. But it was fun to get a sense for the anxious atmosphere.

UPDATE: Check out this series of photos of the inauguration from around the world.

KQED, which produces The California Report, also won the category of Feature Reporting for a story filed by Rob Schmitz (our L.A. Bureau Chief) on medical care at federal detention centers.

The first episode of Health Dialogues since I’ve signed on as the web producer aired yesterday. It includes an audio slideshow I put together after a trip to Balboa High School, a public school in San Francisco that has banned junk food, sodas, etc. from campus.

I’ve also added a “my latest work” section to the right sidebar, where you’ll find links to my latest work online.

Since 1996, the FCC has continued on its course of deregulating media ownership. In 2003, the agency attempted its most dramatic deregulation yet, allowing cross-media ownership. That is, owning broadcast and print media within the same local market. But after a federal court struck down many of the deregulations (and the Supreme Court refused to hear multiple appeals), the FCC was told to revisit its reasoning behind relaxing its media ownership rules.

Now, the FCC appears to be ready to try this again. Chairman Kevin J. Martin has announced that he wants a vote on cross-media deregulation in the next two months.

The last time the FCC tried this, it was flooded with 3,000,000 public comments against the rule change, it went ahead with it anyway and a federal court threw out the new rules.

What will happen this time?

More on:
FCC’s new plans for deregulation here.
Promethius Radio Group (anti-deregulation activist group that won its case against the FCC’s 2003 rules) here.
Hey, I wrote a paper about the FCC and the public interest in grad school! It’s right here.

What’s special about tomorrow is that the FCC is weighing a request from an unlikely telecom player: Google. The company would like to see a huge change in the way the FCC regulates wireless airwaves, and has promised a bid of at least $4.6 billion if its conditions are met.

Could this spell the end for frustrating cell phone limitations? Or will it just mean you’re going to get bombarded by Google advertising? Stay tuned.

More on:
Google’s plan and brief lobbying history here.
Live audio/video link to tomorrow’s FCC meeting here (begins 10am Eastern).