TEAM BIOGRAPHIES

Producer and Host: Emerald Yeh

Emerald Yeh is an award-winning television journalist who served as an anchor for 19 years at KRON in San Francisco.  During her tenure at the NBC affiliate station, she received numerous national and local awards for her reporting, including nine Emmys.  Yeh also led KRON’s Contact 4 unit with reports that examined consumer issues and problems.  Her Contact 4 team was honored with the Consumer Excellence Award from the Consumer Action organization.

She has since distributed her half-hour documentary about children of alcoholics to PBS stations nationwide (www.lostchildhood.org) as well as produced and hosted “Supersizing Our Kids,” a half-hour program about childhood obesity on KVIE (PBS)  (www.kvie.org/programs/kvie/viewfinders/supersizingchildren)

Emerald’s broadcast journalism awards include nine Emmys for reporting on The Rape of Nanking, Who Owns Your Health? Consumer Reporting 2002, Consumer Reporting 2001, Grandparents' Rights, Skipper Lynn, David Laird: Transplant Pioneer and the documentaries Children of Courage and Lost Childhood: Growing Up in an Alcoholic Family. .

Yeh also received three awards from RTNDA (Radio and Television News Directors Association): Best Feature in 1986 for Summer Camp: Children of Alcoholics, Best 30-Minute Newscast" in 1990 for NewsCenter 4 at 5 and Best Feature in 1993 for Holocaust Heroes. In 2000, she won the “Best Series” award from APTRA (Associated Press Television and Radio Association) for a weeklong series “Sudden Wealth.”

National awards include a 1987 UPI (United Press International) award for “Best Feature” and an award in 1993 from the American
Psychiatric Association for the documentary “Kids First: A Cry for Help.”

In 1999, the League of Women Voters of San Francisco bestowed its “Women Who Could Be President” Award upon Emerald. She was also recognized for her outstanding achievements by the Golden Gate Chapter of American Women in Radio and Television and was the recipient of the “Woman Warrior” award by the Pacific Asian American Women Bay Area Coalition.

Emerald has also received numerous community awards by organizations including the State Attorney General, Youth Advocates, Association of Children’s Services, CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocates for Foster Children), Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Asian Women’s Shelter, Asian Perinatal Advocates, Organization of Chinese Americans, Nihonmachi Legal Outreach, and Chinatown Community Development Center.

Emerald is a founding and current board member of the Asia Pacific Fund, a community foundation that helps Asian donors direct their philanthropic dollars toward unmet Asian needs in the Bay Area. She is also on the board of trustees for the Schools of the Sacred Heart in San Francisco, chair of the James Beard Foundation’s Broadcast Awards Committee, and serves on the UCSF Wellness Lecture Committee.

A graduate of the University of Hawaii, Emerald majored in journalism and minored in political science. She earned a Master's degree in Journalism from Columbia University.

Photographer: Craig Franklin

Craig Franklin is a three-time winner of the George Foster Peabody award for documentaries he photographed and helped produce at KRON-TV where he worked from 1977 until 2004. Franklin has also won an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University award as well as 17 Northern California regional Emmy awards for his producing, camera work, editing and writing.

In 1983, Franklin traveled to El Salvador to co-produce and shoot Climate of Death, a half-hour documentary on the murders of nine Americans in that war-torn country. The program went on to win the Peabody and DuPont awards.

Franklin also produced programs on conflicts in Northern Ireland and Israel, the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, and the drive for redress by Japanese Americans interned during World War II. His investigation of the Japanese tourist industry in San Francisco led to the largest civil rights fine in California history, and his reports on HMO’s resulted in the largest healthcare fine in state history.

Franklin won a second Peabody award in 1989 for I Want To Go Home, a documentary on homeless children and their families.

Since 1997, Franklin has been producing news stories about race relations, and received a third Peabody for About Race, a one-hour special program intended to facilitate racial dialogue. He currently serves on the advisory board of News Watch, a resource and monitoring group seeking to improve how journalists cover diversity. Columbia University is using Franklin’s work to train students and professional journalists on race reporting and recognized him with its “Diversity Leadership” award in 2002. Franklin currently works at KPIX-TV in San Francisco as senior coordinating producer for 30 Minutes, a Bay Area version of the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes. He reports to Don Hewitt, creator of 60 Minutes.

Editor: Jim Joy

Jim Joy is a 32-year veteran of editing at KRON-TV where reporters consider him a living treasure, making him easily the most sought-after editor in the newsroom. His roster of awards includes a Peabody, 17 local Emmys, 10 RTNDA awards and three Associated Press awards.

The one-hour documentary, I Want to Go Home, about homeless children earned Joy a Peabody in 1989.

Joy won his 17 Emmys between the years of 1985 and 2004. Five of those awards were for the documentaries: Lost Childhood: Growing Up in an Alcoholic Family, Herb Caen: A Chronicle, How We Played the Game: Negro League Baseball, Growing Up and Coming Out, and A Day in the Life. Two half-hour specials: Beating the Odds and Students Rising Above also earned Joy Emmys as well as the news features: War Story, The Moving Wall, David Laird: Transplant Pioneer, The Wake-up Wars, Calendars, Moviegoers’ Rights, First Cut: Sex Then and Now, Jim Joy Editing Composite, Consumer Reporting Composite and a sports segment Renaissance Kid.

Jim Joy also edited the first local program to deal with the AIDS epidemic and has served as a documentary judge for the San Francisco International Film Festival.