UC Berkeley Journalism - Program

Television Program Faculty and Lecturers

Faculty

Joan Bieder (Senior Lecturer)
Joan Bieder worked for a decade as a television news producer at ABC News. Before coming to Berkeley, she taught print and broadcast journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Bieder has produced a series of videos on broadcast journalism, a film on female journalists in Asia and a video on the history of the Jews of Singapore. Her research has focused on freedom-of-the-press issues in Singapore, where she has spent several summers working as a consultant to the news staff of Singapore Television. Bieder is writing a book on the history of the Jews of Singapore and Southeast Asia. She holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Goucher College.
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Bob Calo (Senior Lecturer)
Bob Calo began his career in television at KQED in San Francisco, where he produced daily news and documentaries for the local and national PBS audience. He moved to New York to join ABC News “Primetime Live,” and then to NBC News as a broadcast producer. Calo produced stories throughout the U.S. and foreign countries, including assignments in Pakistan, Chile, Croatia, Kenya, and Somalia. His work has been honored by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, IRE, and National Headliner awards, among others. As an independent producer, he produced a documentary profile of the late landscape historian J.B. Jackson for PBS. Calo joined the faculty in 2001 and continues to write and produce for the national broadcast audience. He received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a master’s in broadcast communication arts from San Francisco State University.
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Lecturers

Todd Carrel (Lecturer)
Todd Carrel is a journalist who covered Asia for more than a decade, first as a reporter for the Associated Press based in Tokyo, then as the ABC News bureau chief and correspondent in China. He has worked for National Geographic on many projects, contributed numerous freelance stories to newspapers, and produced an independent documentary aired on PBS stations.

David Charron (Lecturer)
Charron has a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford and his MBA from Haas. He joined the faculty in 2003 after having served as CEO of 6Gear Inc. and Osner Inc. Charron has also consulted for various startups, serves as Executive Director of the Berkeley Entrepreneurship Laboratory and is a Mentor to the Global Social Venture Competition at Haas. Charron teaches several courses at Haas including, Entrepreneurship & Innovation Entrepreneurship Workshop for Start-Ups Life as an Entrepreneur, Business Model Innovation for New Ventures.
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Steve Cheng (Lecturer)
Steve Cheng worked in network television news for twenty eight years, first with ABC News in Washington, D.C. and New York, then, until 2006, as a producer with Dateline NBC. He was also a producer on Bill Moyers’ PBS documentary on Chinese American history. He is a graduate of Yale University.

Terisa Estacio (Lecturer)
Terisa started working with KRON in 2001. A veteran of the news business, Terisa's experience spans much of the nation. She previously worked as a correspondent for CBS's Newspath traveling the nation to all breaking news events. Terisa has covered numerous high-profile court cases including the trial of the men accused of beating and killing Matthew Shepard's because he was gay, and the trial and execution of Timothy McVeigh. Terisa has also traveled the country covering national disasters including the country's worst floods, hurricanes, and fires. Turning to politics, Terisa worked as a White House correspondent for Tribune Broadcasting during President Clinton's first term. She was later on the scene for much of the breaking news surrounding the 2000 Presidential race between President Bush and then Candidate Al Gore. In more than two decades as a journalist, Terisa has worked for television stations in Los Angeles, Houston, Texas, Sacramento, Reno and Eureka. Now settled in the Bay Area, Terisa covers a wide range of topics for KRON-TV, with an emphasis on crime, the courts and top investigative stories of the day. Terisa was born and raised in the Bay Area and is very proud and extremely happy to be back home covering the important stories for Bay Area residents. She lives in the North Bay with her dog, Kalvin.

Karen Everett (Lecturer)
Karen Everett is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and editor based in San Francisco. She has directed five documentaries which have received educational distribution and aired on PBS. Everett teaches editing at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She has edited the nightly news for a top-ranked NBC affiliate, taught at several Bay Area colleges, and recently authored “Reality in Three Acts: What Documentary Filmmakers Can Learn From Screenwriters”.

Grace Kahng (Lecturer)
Grace Kahng has spent 25 years investigating social justice and international human rights issues for national print and network broadcast media as a reporter and documentary producer. She has worked for PBS, ABC, CBS, and NBC NEWS producing for the top network anchors and broadcasts including the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, Primetime Live, 60 Minutes, and Dateline. She currently runs Santoki Productions where she continues to produce news and documentaries for all three networks. Her clients include Katie Couric of CBS EVENING NEWS, the TODAY SHOW and NBC News. Kahng has been awarded journalism’s highest honors including multiple National News Emmy Awards, the Robert F Kennedy Journalism Award for International Broadcast, an IRE Medal, George Foster Peabody Awards, the Sidney Hillman Award for Social Justice , Amnesty International Journalism Award, and numerous National Emmy nominations. In 1994, Kahng was selected for the William Benton Fellowship at the University of Chicago where she received an honorary degree in public policy. During her network career, Kahng reported some of the most high profile and news-breaking investigations at ABC News including exposes about the U.S. Military auctioning off toxic waste to unsuspecting citizens, malfeasance on the part of US officials after the rape and torture of an American nun in Guatemala and the most extensive case of priest pedophilia and cover up by the Catholic Church. Many of those exposes resulted in significant policy changes including the way the U.S. Military handles hazardous waste and the way abuse cases are handled by the U.S. Catholic bishops. Santoki’s most recent documentary, SEX SLAVES IN AMERICA, about human trafficking can be seen on MSNBC. Kahng received her B.S. in Radio/TV/Film from Northwestern University. She credits much of her career to the rigorous education she received from legendary Chicago editor, Dick Hainey at the Medill School of Journalism.

Kean Sakata (Lecturer)
forthcoming

Linda Schacht (Lecturer)
Linda Schacht is an Emmy award winning television reporter with more than 20 years experience in local television. Her career began at KQED-TV on the highly regarded Newsroom nightly news show. She then covered politics, locally and nationally, for KPIX, the CBS owned and operated station in San Francisco, for nineteen years. Linda has won two Emmy awards and an American Bar Association national award for her political coverage. She has been on the faculty since 1992 and continues to write television scripts and do special television and documentary projects.