Carly Severn

Carly Severn is the Senior Editor of Audience News at KQED News, leading a desk which produces explanatory, audience-centered utility journalism across kqed.org, radio and engagement platforms that’s aimed at helping our communities navigate life in the Bay Area in 2023. Since 2020, she’s particularly focused on audience-informed COVID coverage as a reporter.

Carly has also reported for KQED’s The California Report Magazine, Bay Curious podcast and KQED’s Arts and Culture desk, and was the co-host of The Cooler podcast for 5 years. Her most recent long-form narrative work was a KQED audio documentary about the Donner Party for Bay Curious. In 2020 she taught the first Audience Engagement class at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Carly has spent her career working in and around audience engagement in various capacities, and led KQED’s cross-departmental team of social media and engagement producers as Senior Social Media Strategist before joining the newsroom. Before KQED, she worked in the arts and cultural space, in digital engagement and communications roles at San Francisco Ballet and Cambridge University’s Fitzwilliam Museum.

Carly was born and raised in the UK, which is why she sounds like that.