Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:39] And our intern Mel Velasquez,.
Mel Velasquez [00:01:41] Hello!
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:43] And our producer Jessica Kariisa.
Jessica Kariisa [00:01:44] Howdy!
Alan Montecillo [00:01:46] So ECG, when we were brainstorming this episode, celebrating 1 ,000 shows of the Bay, crazy, we asked, where should we go? You said Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo. Why is that?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:00] Well, I always love any opportunity to show people around my town. I went here a lot growing up at one point. It was definitely my day care. My parents would just drop me and my cousins off and we’d spend the whole day here unsupervised. And it sort of represented, I don’t know, freedom and feeling like a big kid. and also just fun. It’s just a lot of fun. So I wanted to bring you all here so we can celebrate a thousand episodes and also just have fun. Yeah, so we’ll obviously ride some rides, probably eat some fried food. but also talk about a thousand episodes, what that means, how it’s been working on the show for five years now on my end, but then also seeing all the different iterations of it. This is a particularly fun group, I think, so I’m really excited to be here with you all and just celebrate a thousand episodes of the Bay.
Alan Montecillo [00:03:10] Cool. Let’s do it.
Jen Chien [00:03:18] My name is Jen Chien. I’m the director of podcasts for KQED. And I love the Bay because it really lives up to its tagline. It’s local news that keeps me feeling rooted. I feel more connected to my own community and to communities that I might not be a part of. I leave each episode feeling like a more empowered and informed citizen of this tapestry of people and places that we live in here in the Bay area.
Mel Velasquez [00:03:51] That ride looks insane.
Alan Montecillo [00:03:56] Okay, so we’re about to get on a ride called Kong. ECG, have you been on this one before?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:03] I definitely have, but honestly I can’t remember what it’s like. So yeah, this is like a big orange roller coaster where your feet dangle. I was here at Discovery Kingdom last summer with my niece and nephew and I think Kong was closed so I wasn’t able to ride it so this is going to be the first time I’m riding this ride since I was like a kid.
Alan Montecillo [00:04:25] Jessica, you doing alright? You ready?
Jessica Kariisa [00:04:27] I think I’m ready. The last one was a baby ride but I was scared I did keep my eyes closed half the time. That was my primer and then I’ll be good now. That was the thinking. That was exciting.
Alan Montecillo [00:04:38] It’s the big leagues now. Alright.
Six Flags Employee [00:04:39] Enjoy the view of the employee parking lot on the almighty Kong. Bye!
Erika Kelly [00:04:55] ECG, this one’s for you. The reason I love the Bay is you all know exactly the right question to ask for every listener in your audience that might be wondering, why should I care?
Ted Goldberg [00:05:11] The angle of your questions over and over again makes me think about approaching my coverage in new and different ways.
Rachael Myrow [00:05:17] I’ve worked with the Bay on a number of stories, and they cut away all the fat, making me sound so succinct. I’m telling you, they make me sound good. Love y ‘all.
Jessica Kariisa [00:05:33] We just had some funnel cake. We rode two rides, Cobra, you know, baby rides started off light, and then Kong, which almost took me out. And Alan now. And Alan, yeah. Though he did not scream. I screamed the entire time. The entire time. But yeah, Erica, we’re gonna turn it back to you. What’s it like being here with the team? How does it feel being in this very nostalgic place for you?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:01] It’s so much fun, I love roller coasters. I heard Jessica scream for the first time. She was sitting right behind me on Kong and she sounded like a little mouse. It was so cute. And yeah, much like the news, everything has just sort of felt like a roller coaster and I think that’s what it’s like to like working in the news. It’s just like up and down, up and down.
Jessica Kariisa [00:06:33] You came back to Vallejo after, you know, you’re obviously from this area and you left, but you know, I don’t know that listeners know that you’ve had this whole journey to coming back to Vallejo, so tell us a bit more about that.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:46] So I was born in Vallejo. I was raised mostly in Suisun City and Fairfield, which is like the next town over, but I was in Vallejo like every week growing up. This is like where all my family was. My immediate family was sort of the only one who like moved outside of Vallejo, but everyone else was here, my cousins, my aunties, my uncles. You know, I went to college at San Francisco State. After that, I lived in Portland for a little bit. After that, I lived in Oakland for a little bit. I kind of was hopping all over. And then I found myself back in Vallejo in the middle of the pandemic.
Alan Montecillo [00:07:21] How did you come to that decision, and how different is it to live here versus living in Oakland?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:28] It’s been, I don’t know, really interesting because this is the place that my family really settled when they immigrated here from the Philippines. I didn’t have very much family in Oakland or nearby and I think many people in the pandemic, there was just this sense of wanting to go home or wanting to feel the comfort of home before the pandemic. I don’t think I ever thought I would be living in Vallejo, to be honest. But I think… Moving back home made me realize how comforting it is. I’m so close to family. It just feels like home.
Alan Montecillo [00:08:07] Is it weird for you to be hosting the show from Vallejo? spend, I mean, really most of our episodes talking about San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:08:21] Yeah, I wouldn’t say it feels weird to cover those different places from Vallejo. If anything, I feel like me being here is actually sort of a superpower. I get a lot of questions from other journalists sometimes who are like, why do you live in Vallejo? And… I mean, honestly, I feel like it actually gives me sort of a perspective on the Bay Area and on our show that I think is really helpful because the Bay Area is not just Oakland, San Jose, and San Francisco, even though perhaps those are the cities that we’re covering the most. But when I think about, you know, whenever we do those episodes. I sort of think about it as like why is what’s happening in San Francisco or these bigger cities important to everyone in the Bay Area and I think it’s important to be able to make those connections and I feel like living in Vallejo has sort of given me that perspective that I think is important in the news.
Six Flags Employee [00:09:23] Oh those gates are now opening, please watch the instep as you walk on through. Please place any loose articles that you may have beside those gummies to the left, such as hats, scuffs, gates, finny bags, briefs…
Ethan Toven-Lindsey [00:09:38] This is Ethan Toven-Lindsey. I’m the vice president of news at KQED. I was the managing editor when The Bay launched a thousand episodes ago. We went through a lot of naming decisions about it. What should we call it? How do we call it? Branding sort of stuff. And there was one meeting where I argued vehemently over and over and over to call the show hella deep. Like, you know, we were going hella deep on The Bay. Really glad that no one listened to me and we did not call the show hella deep.
Devin Katayama [00:10:16] Hi, this is Devin Katayama, former host and co -creator of The Bay, saying congratulations to making it to a thousand episodes. That is, that’s a lot of episodes. Gotta be honest. I remember reaching a hundred episodes and thinking that that was a big deal because just one of these things is a whole entire world on its own. So love you all. Congratulations. Keep doing it.
Jessica Kariisa [00:10:45] I’ve been on the show now six months, but you’ve been on the show six years. You started off as a producer for the show. Do you remember your earliest episodes, your earliest days on the show? What was that like?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:59] Yeah, it doesn’t feel like six years, and it doesn’t feel like six months either, Jessica. It feels like you’ve been with us for so long now, in the best way. I remember the earliest days of the show. I think on my first or second day, Erika Aguilar, the founding producer of The Bay, literally stuck me in a recording booth and was like, can you interview this student and host this episode? At the time, I was like… Why is she making me do this? But also, okay, I’ll do it. I’ll just suck it up. But I think it’s also what’s so cool about the show is I feel like really what you hear every day is the creative freedom of everyone on the team, from producer to editor to host. Like we are all very, very involved in every part.
Erika Aguilar [00:12:12] Hello Bay Team, it’s Erika Aguilar. Congratulations, a thousand episodes. It’s amazing. I love the commitment, the commitment to daily news, local news, storytelling, telling the backstory, the history, the how we got here so we know where we’re going and how we can participate. It’s so important in local news right now, especially as myths and disinformation just circle around. I am honored to have been part of the original team and I love seeing the commitment overall. Congratulations, good luck, and here’s to another 1000.
Jessica Kariisa [00:13:15] I’m curious how has hosting the show changed you?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:21] I mean, I think when you’re a reporter, it’s so easy to just like be in your reporting. It’s easy to sort of like follow every lead, but I feel like as the host of The Bay, you really have to like step back and think about the news from the perspective of the listener. And I feel like as a show, we’re always like sorting through other people’s reporting, right? And like… how to help them tell their story in a way that resonates with everyone, and especially people who just are living here, not just like experts or journalists. I think hosting the show has made me better at that, like has made me better at thinking about journalism, not as this like hierarchical thing where like I know better than you, but like I know just as much as you actually, the listener, and like it’s my job to. be your advocate in a way when I’m sitting in the studio with a reporter and asking them about the reporting. And so I’m grateful for that perspective.
Alan Montecillo [00:14:31] What do you hope listeners get out of listening to the show? Whether they’ve been listening since the beginning or maybe they’ve just subscribed. Maybe they’ve just started listening. What do you hope people get out of it?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:14:45] I hope you feel smarter and more empowered about where we live. And I think, like, I hope people feel inspired also. It’s always really cool when I hear from listeners who, like, did something because they heard an episode of The Bay. That’s the peak for me. Like I met someone who was volunteering at a Fix -It Clinic because he had heard our episode on Fix -It Clinics, which he had never heard of, and then decided to just volunteer at one of them. And I got to meet this person. And like that is so, such a rare experience for me as a host, but like, and I would love to believe that there are other examples of that that we never hear about Alan, you know, of just like. Because we kind of put these episodes out into the world and we don’t know who they reach or what they’re doing out there. But I just like to imagine when these episodes come out that it’s reaching who it needs to reach and that people are inspired to act or share what they heard to someone else so that we’re all more informed.
Alan Montecillo [00:15:58] Well, Ericka Cruz Guevara, thank you for talking about the Bay and hosting the show and for bringing us here to Six Flags.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:16:08] Yeah, I mean, Al Montesilio, thank you for being the senior editor of The Bay. Jessica Carissa, thank you for producing, being like such an amazing producer. Mel Velasquez behind the mic here for bringing the energy, honestly. Mel brings this just like incredible energy to the show.
Alan Montecillo [00:16:30] And to Six Flags because, you know, Jessica and I already are flagging a bit on some of these rides and Mel is like, I’ll be there.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:16:37] Yeah, yeah.
Alan Montecillo [00:16:37] Let’s do three more roller coasters.
