It’s such a singular pleasure to sit down for a talk with a really good storyteller. And that’s just what Brad Kava is, and it has been his calling for over four decades. Starting his professional career as a stringer for the New York Times, Brad has worked for a number of newspapers including the Kansas City Star, the San Jose Mercury News, the Santa Cruz Good Times, the Patch, and quite a few others. Brad certainly has the “write stuff” when it comes to Journalism, as you’ll hear in this lively discussion.

Mr. Kava is currently the chair of the Journalism department at Cabrillo College in Aptos, CA. He says that even in this digital day and age when the traditional newspaper business seems to be a shadow of its former self, interest in journalism itself is alive and well – maybe stronger than ever. The Journalism department at Cabrillo College has grown from just 50 students when he took the reins to about 150 today. He credits President Donald Trump for the surge in interest in the field.

Naturally, that leads to a discussion of Fake News, and the idea that journalists are an “enemy of the people.” We discussed Bob Woodward’s new book Fear about the Trump administration, and the parallels between now and the time that Woodward rose to fame as the lead investigative journalist for the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon Administration.

It was a wide-ranging, fast paced, and fascinating discussion and we wrapped up with a tangential discussion about the Santa Cruz Rail Trail, of all things. I think you’ll really enjoy this episode, on many levels. A good story is like that.