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KCET will announce today that former KPCC host Madeleine Brand will become a special contributor to "SoCal Connected." The show is also going daily as of October 29 — it had aired on a weekly cycle. Val Zavala will remain the show's news anchor, with Brand doing mostly interviews, it sounds like. New shows will air at 7 p.m. and repeat at 10:30 p.m.
Via KCET:
"SoCal Connected will continue its tradition of covering a wide range of stories, from around the corner to around the world," said Bret Marcus, KCET's Chief Content Officer and SoCal Connected's executive producer. "We have one of the strongest producing/reporting teams in Southern California, and are honored to add Madeleine to that group. She is a terrific broadcaster who has developed a loyal following among both listeners and newsmakers".
Marcus also announced the appointment of Rebecca Haggerty as his co-executive producer. Haggerty is an award-winning producer at SoCal Connected who has vast experience, including ten years producing for Dateline NBC in New York. Returning for the fifth season are award winning investigative producer Karen Foshay who will now function as senior producer of investigations, and producers Dina Demetrius, Angela Shelley and producer/correspondent Vince Gonzales. The broadcast producer is Jeff Kaufman. The coordinating producer is Linda Burns. Also returning are correspondents Laurel Erickson, Jennifer London and Judy Muller, among others.
Brand, of course, left KPCC abruptly recently, saying she had some new prospects in her future. Her highly rated morning show on the NPR station had been re-invented with a co-host and plans to go national. It's now called "Take 2" and the co-hosts are A Martinez and Alex Cohen.
Here's the SoCal Connected website.
