KTLA’s News At 10: Sixty Years with Stan Chambers
By Stan Chambers, with Lynn Price
Trade paperback
5 ½ x 8 ½
Non-fiction
Release Date: February15, 2008
$14.95
ISBN: 9781933016504
In 1947 Stan caught a wave just as KTLA Channel 5, Los Angeles, was becoming the first commercial television station this side of the Mississippi. This wave has taken Stan on an unimaginable journey covering TV news that has been going strong for sixty years
He shares his life with an engaging style that merges storyline with a broad spectrum of television history and events that includes:
* Technical achievements in television, (e.g., KTLA engineered the first ever news Telecopter)
* The Bobby Kennedy Assassination (1968)
* Breaking of the Rodney King Beating story
* The Baldwin Hills Dam Disaster
* The Watts Riots (1965) and the Los Angeles Riots (1992)
* The Kathy Fiscus Story (the “little girl” who fell into the well in 1947)
* Live coverage of the A-Bomb test in the Nevada prove-up grounds (1951)
* Southern California earthquakes, Malibu fires, and everything in between.
Stan is also involved with the Stan Chambers Journalism Awards, an annual essay competition that awards senior high school students interested in journalism careers with cash awards.
Other honors include several Emmy and Golden Mike awards, the Sigma Delta Chi Broadcaster of the Year award, the Governor’s Award from the Television Academy, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, an L.A. Press Club Award, L.A. City and County proclamations, and from his alma mater, the USC Alumni Association Award. The Associated Press Television-Radio Association of California-Nevada also annually presents the Stan Chambers Lifetime Achievement Award.
He’s still out there, over 22,000 stories later, with mic in hand. As Chambers puts it, “When you report news in Los Angeles, you are broadcasting to the biggest hometown in America.”
For more information and newscast videos about Stan Chambers, click here to view the KTLA Web site.
Visit Stan’s Web site here.
Reviews and Accolades
Stan Chambers
What a wonderful journey through the history of television news! Any of us who passed through local television in Los Angeles stand in awe of his dedicated professionalism. I’ve seen him handle the fluffiest of pieces with a dignity and humor that managed to elevate them, and I’ve watched him tackle the most serious and important stories of our time in a way that humanized and clarified them. The other great thing about Stan is that he’s been around so long, I still feel like the new kid!
Pat Sajak, host of Wheel of Fortune
“.his memories of the drama of live television and the evolution of tape delay are most entertaining.”
– Publishers Weekly
“Stan, I am in awe of your career, and I am privileged to have been your colleague.”
– Tom Brokaw
“Stan’s dedication, integrity, and professionalism are legendary. Stan doesn’t just report the news; he cares.”
– Nancy Reagan
As I closed News At 10 this evening, I found it ironic that I was marking the pages with my own business card… which read Reporter/Anchor. It was because of Stan’s inspiring career that I found my way into this crazy business. I am a little disappointed I never got to go out on any stories with Stan when I interned at KTLA now nearly ten years ago. But the leadership that Stan and others (including reporter Bill Smith, and the late Hal Fishman) showed provided me with a great start in the news business. It has been said that the history of Stan Chambers is the history of Los Angeles television news. I completely agree, and News At 10 provided me with insight that I hope to one day draw on as a reporter in Los Angeles as well. I don’t remember a news event while growing up that Stan or KTLA were not a part of. Congratulations Stan on your monumental achievement… I hope that you continue to inspire young journalists with your dedication.
– Tom Durian Reporter/Anchor KHQ-TV Spokane, WA
