Making Los Angeles

We’re bringing back a few of my favorite conversations from last season — Season One Spotlights, as we’re calling them — so whether you’ve been with us from the start or you’re just discovering the show, these episodes capture the people, stories, and ideas that shape how we see Los Angeles.

Kevin Demoff is the President of Team & Media Operations for Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, where he helps lead some of the biggest names in sports — including the Los Angeles Rams, the team he helped relocate from St. Louis back to his hometown. In this episode: why taking the Rams job felt like a terrible decision at the time, what it was like to have Dan Marino show up to your middle school basketball games, and how growing up in L.A. shaped his approach to building something lasting here — even if that wasn’t part of the plan when he took the job. We recorded this conversation inside Rams Draft HQ — at the Los Angeles Fire Department Air Operations facility in Van Nuys — on the morning of Day 2 of the NFL Draft.

Please enjoy this preview of the first episode of Patt Morrison's latest miniseries, Smoglandia.  Smoglandia is a narrative audio series tracing the rise, impact and eventual retreat of L.A.’s most insidious form of pollution: smog. Through interviews with scientists, policymakers, filmmakers and artists who lived through the worst days, Smoglandia explores how Los Angeles became a testing ground for environmental regulation, and how science and innovation transformed public health. At a moment when our hard-triumphs over smog face new setbacks, Smoglandia explores a landmark victory for the City of Angels, and, through clearer air, looks forward to the lessons we still have to learn — and the battles we have yet to fight.

We’re bringing back a few of my favorite conversations from last season — Season One Spotlights, as we’re calling them — so whether you’ve been with us from the start or you’re just discovering the show, these episodes capture the people, stories, and ideas that shape how we see Los Angeles.

While Mayor Karen Bass hardly needs an introduction, what sticks with me most from this conversation is how deeply connected she is to the city’s history — white flight, the RFK assassination, the crack epidemic — and yet how firmly her identity remains rooted in the people. Even after decades inside government, she still approaches power like someone trying to change it from the outside.

What’s it like to carry one of the most powerful names in Los Angeles history — and still make your own mark?

Harry Chandler is the great-great-grandson of Harrison Gray Otis, who took over the Los Angeles Times in 1882 and began a century-long dynasty that helped shape the city’s growth, politics, and mythos. But Harry? He took a different path.

In this episode, we talk about what it’s like to grow up a Chandler, how he ended up helping the Yahoo founders write their first business plan, and why he walked away from the tech world to become a full-time artist. We also talk about his work to revitalize the LA River — and what it means to reimagine a city your family once helped design.

And yes — he used to take his grandmother to concerts. But when your grandmother is Dorothy Chandler… and the concerts are at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion — well, that hits a little different.

How does the son of a bracero and a labor organizer become one of the most influential figures in California politics?

Fabian Núñez is the former Speaker of the California State Assembly and was a driving force in the rise of Latino political power in California — helping turn what was once the exception into today’s expectation of Latino representation at the highest levels of government.

In this episode, Fabian reflects on his early days as one of 13 children, why he moved from San Diego to Los Angeles, and his unlikely ascent to Speaker after just one term in the Assembly. We talk about the cohort he came up with — Antonio Villaraigosa, Kevin de León, Gil Cedillo — and how their work reshaped California’s political map.

We recorded this conversation at the L.A. County Federation of Labor, where Fabian got his start under the late Miguel Contreras, forging the labor-Latino alliance that continues to shape the state today.

Oh, and you’ll hear a pretty solid Arnold Schwarzenegger impression.

What’s it like to be the voice that generations of Angelenos grew up with — even if they wouldn’t recognize your face?

Larry Mantle has hosted KPCC’s AirTalk for over 40 years, making him one of the most enduring and trusted voices in public radio. Over the decades, he’s interviewed politicians, filmmakers, athletes, scientists, authors — and more than a few unforgettable callers. In this episode, we’ll hear which moments stand out from thousands of conversations, and what’s stayed with him most after four decades behind the mic.

We also talk about the path not taken — including a brief stint as a news director that lasted just three weeks, and even an early brush with the priesthood. But more than anything, we get a sense of Larry himself: warm, thoughtful, curious, and still in love with the art of the interview.

We recorded this one in his natural habitat — the AirTalk studio. He sat where he always sits. I took the guest chair. We put on our headphones… and just like that, we were live.

What do the Army, the Dodgers, the L.A. Times, and the 2028 Olympics have in common? Renata Simril.

Renata Simril is the President & CEO of the LA84 Foundation — one of the most influential philanthropic organizations in Los Angeles. Her journey has taken her from growing up in Carson to standing in the room when L.A. was awarded the 2028 Olympic Games. Along the way, she’s helped rebuild South L.A. after the riots, served as a Deputy Mayor, and held leadership roles at both the Dodgers and the L.A. Times.

In this episode, we hear about her unexpected path — including witnessing the fall of the Berlin Wall, working under the then-fledgling, now-formidable Guggenheim Dodgers ownership, and how LA84 — originally funded by the rarest thing in Olympic history: a surplus — became a cornerstone for equity and youth sports in Los Angeles.

And — we’ll find out which legendary L.A. sports icon gets even Renata Simril a little choked up.

This one’s got heart, history, and a whole lot of L.A.

What’s it like to give L.A. the weather for 40 years… and still slip out for a stand-up set between newscasts?

For four decades, Fritz Coleman was more than just the weatherman on KNBC Channel 4 — he was part of the fabric of Los Angeles life. But behind the “weather words” were some surprising turns: his first TV job came while serving in the Navy during the Vietnam era, he nearly pursued a full-time career in stand-up comedy, and he’ll tell us why he could never get the same job today.

In this episode, we hear how a kid from Pennsylvania became a local legend in Los Angeles, why he got bumped from The Tonight Show (twice), and how he managed to balance the nightly news with late-night comedy sets.

What’s it like to go from community organizer to Congress to the Mayor’s chair — with history rhyming along the way?

Karen Bass’s story is as personal as it is political — and as uniquely Los Angeles as they come.

Before she was Mayor of Los Angeles, she was a physician’s assistant, the founder of the influential nonprofit Community Coalition, the first Black woman to serve as Speaker of the California Assembly, a Congresswoman, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and even a contender for Vice President.

In this episode, Mayor Bass talks about the forces that shaped her: being denied entry to her middle school because they had “met their quota” of Black students, hearing Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination broadcast live on the radio after volunteering for his campaign at age 14, and growing up during a time when her parents warned her that Martin Luther King Jr. might not live to see his dream fulfilled.

This isn’t a policy interview — it’s a conversation about the life that shaped the leader. The fires, ICE raids, and challenges of today are part of the story, but this is less 

Meet the Press

 … and more 

Meet Karen Bass.

Pandora’s Box: The Fall of L.A.’s Sheriff is a six-part true crime investigation from the Los Angeles Times about one of the biggest law enforcement scandals in U.S. history.

Follow Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Christopher Goffard as he uncovers how Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, once hailed as a reformer, became entangled in a shocking cover-up inside the nation’s largest jail system. From FBI informants and jailhouse brutality to corruption at the highest levels, this series reveals how deputies hid an inmate, intimidated federal agents, and ultimately brought down one of California’s most powerful sheriffs.