Stan Atkinson, longtime KCRA anchor, dies
Too often the words “giant,” “legend,” and “icon” are used to describe someone. Yet Sacramento has genuinely lost a man who epitomized all three of those adjectives. Longtime Sacramento anchor Stan Atkinson died on Sunday, his son confirmed to KCRA 3. He was 92 years old. Stan Atkinson is a name synonymous with Northern California news.Long before The Sacramento Bee called him “the man who owns Sacramento,” Atkinson studied journalism at Pasadena City College. He fought in the Korean War. But it is his time in the KCRA 3 newsroom that will forever define him.It is, perhaps, a promotional video for KCRA that begins to tell the story best. A half-lit studio, cameras stored off to the side, an experienced Stan Atkinson comes walking from behind one of those square, boxy camera hoods, a little bit of gray on the sides of his head. He looks at the camera…looks at the viewer from inside the television itself, saying “when KCRA went on the air in 1955 a commitment was made that THIS was where the news comes first.” Stan would have known. At the age of 25, Atkinson embarked on a career in Sacramento at a station that had just gotten off the ground. It was 1957, and in walked a fresh-faced, youthful man with a tight crew cut. He’d been recruited from a small television station and the owner of KCRA at the time, Gene Kelly, had no idea he’d been hired. Kelly turned on his TV one night and saw the 11 o’clock newscast only to show up in the morning editorial meeting the next day asking “who in the hell ever hired that damn kid?!”Instead of firing him, Kelly kept Atkinson, beginning a decades-long relationship between KCRA and Stan Atkinson. They had a newscast in the beginning…it was 10 minutes long. Five of it was sports.Television news was different in the 1950s. For one, it was sponsored and those sponsors’ products showed up on set. The entertainment had a fried pie company. The network’s “Huntley/Brinkley news hour” had Camel cigarettes. And Stan Atkinson had Hostess.”The floor man would roll in a table that was decorated with open or still packaged Hostess Cinnamon Dainties,” Atkinson described in a 2015 interview. “And, it was up to me to open a package, pull one out, hold it up, take a bite, and say, Hostess Cinnamon Bailey’s. I’d say. Got it. Hostess Cinnamon Dainties. I’d take another bite. Get them.”As the TV business changed, Stan was there from innovation to innovation. He was at KCRA for the first color broadcast. He helped anchor the first live election coverage. KCRA had one of the first satellite trucks and Stan was there to broadcast from all over the region with photographers using it.He interviewed the famous, from Betty White to Victor Borge and Jerry Lewis. He also interviewed the infamous, notably, one of the first broadcast journalists to interview Charles Manson.Larger markets came calling and in the early 1960s he left. KNBC. KTVU. Both had Stan Atkinson on their anchor desks. In 1976 he came back to Sacramento. KCRA took out a full page ad stating “Stan’s back! And Channel 3’s got him!”Atkinson was no stranger to heading into war-ravaged countries, facing danger. He produced a documentary in 1961, when few knew what was going on in Vietnam, about life in the villages there. It was called “The Village that Refuses to Die.”From there the war coverage grew – rebel fighting in Angola. He was held at gunpoint in El Salvador and robbed, something the gunmen called a “$100 donation.” He went to Afghanistan twice, covering the fight against Russia by what was then called the Mujahideen.He was well-known for being the reporter that went where the story was. So much so that a promo was made just about where all he’d been: “he’s traveled more places for more stories than any Northern California journalist,” the promo said. The outcues on his stories read like a map: from Geneva, Ephesus, Turkey, Cambodia, Cuba, Afghanistan…”I go looking for stories that are important to people. And that’s reporting no competing service provides,” said Stan.Yet Sacramento viewers became just as familiar with Stan on-set and in the newsroom. He planted his roots in Sacramento, the place he made his home. He raised his kids here.He did, ultimately, leave KCRA…eventually anchoring at KOVR. It’s there he retired from television, but his KCRA family didn’t let him go, doing an unprecedented “goodbye” to him in a live link from KCRA’s studios in Sacramento to KOVR’s in West Sacramento.Stan did come back to KCRA to celebrate the station’s 60th anniversary. “We didn’t make the salaries that they made in San Francisco or Los Angeles,” he pointed out, “even though we were pulling ratings much better than any of those people. But the important thing was that the work was good.”The “work” shifted after retirement. Stan was beloved for helping his community, particularly through nonprofit work. He was one of the first senior citizens to get a COVID shot in order to ease people’s fears. He celebrated his 90th birthday with his family. More importantly he touched the lives of generations of journalists who owe “the man who owned Sacramento” a debt of gratitude for paving the way.The studio he stood in all those years ago is still here. As he put it looking through the screen to each viewer on the other side: “this old studio has seen a lot of news programs, but none as important as the one we’ll do next.”
Too often the words “giant,” “legend,” and “icon” are used to describe someone. Yet Sacramento has genuinely lost a man who epitomized all three of those adjectives.
Longtime Sacramento anchor Stan Atkinson died on Sunday, his son confirmed to KCRA 3. He was 92 years old.
Stan Atkinson is a name synonymous with Northern California news.
Long before The Sacramento Bee called him “the man who owns Sacramento,” Atkinson studied journalism at Pasadena City College. He fought in the Korean War. But it is his time in the KCRA 3 newsroom that will forever define him.
It is, perhaps, a promotional video for KCRA that begins to tell the story best. A half-lit studio, cameras stored off to the side, an experienced Stan Atkinson comes walking from behind one of those square, boxy camera hoods, a little bit of gray on the sides of his head. He looks at the camera…looks at the viewer from inside the television itself, saying “when KCRA went on the air in 1955 a commitment was made that THIS was where the news comes first.” Stan would have known.
At the age of 25, Atkinson embarked on a career in Sacramento at a station that had just gotten off the ground. It was 1957, and in walked a fresh-faced, youthful man with a tight crew cut. He’d been recruited from a small television station and the owner of KCRA at the time, Gene Kelly, had no idea he’d been hired. Kelly turned on his TV one night and saw the 11 o’clock newscast only to show up in the morning editorial meeting the next day asking “who in the hell ever hired that damn kid?!”
Instead of firing him, Kelly kept Atkinson, beginning a decades-long relationship between KCRA and Stan Atkinson. They had a newscast in the beginning…it was 10 minutes long. Five of it was sports.
Television news was different in the 1950s. For one, it was sponsored and those sponsors’ products showed up on set. The entertainment had a fried pie company. The network’s “Huntley/Brinkley news hour” had Camel cigarettes. And Stan Atkinson had Hostess.
“The floor man would roll in a table that was decorated with open or still packaged Hostess Cinnamon Dainties,” Atkinson described in a 2015 interview. “And, it was up to me to open a package, pull one out, hold it up, take a bite, and say, Hostess Cinnamon Bailey’s. I’d say. Got it. Hostess Cinnamon Dainties. I’d take another bite. Get them.”
As the TV business changed, Stan was there from innovation to innovation. He was at KCRA for the first color broadcast. He helped anchor the first live election coverage. KCRA had one of the first satellite trucks and Stan was there to broadcast from all over the region with photographers using it.
He interviewed the famous, from Betty White to Victor Borge and Jerry Lewis. He also interviewed the infamous, notably, one of the first broadcast journalists to interview Charles Manson.
Larger markets came calling and in the early 1960s he left. KNBC. KTVU. Both had Stan Atkinson on their anchor desks. In 1976 he came back to Sacramento. KCRA took out a full page ad stating “Stan’s back! And Channel 3’s got him!”
Atkinson was no stranger to heading into war-ravaged countries, facing danger. He produced a documentary in 1961, when few knew what was going on in Vietnam, about life in the villages there. It was called “The Village that Refuses to Die.”
From there the war coverage grew – rebel fighting in Angola. He was held at gunpoint in El Salvador and robbed, something the gunmen called a “$100 donation.” He went to Afghanistan twice, covering the fight against Russia by what was then called the Mujahideen.
He was well-known for being the reporter that went where the story was. So much so that a promo was made just about where all he’d been: “he’s traveled more places for more stories than any Northern California journalist,” the promo said. The outcues on his stories read like a map: from Geneva, Ephesus, Turkey, Cambodia, Cuba, Afghanistan…”I go looking for stories that are important to people. And that’s reporting no competing service provides,” said Stan.
Yet Sacramento viewers became just as familiar with Stan on-set and in the newsroom. He planted his roots in Sacramento, the place he made his home. He raised his kids here.
He did, ultimately, leave KCRA…eventually anchoring at KOVR. It’s there he retired from television, but his KCRA family didn’t let him go, doing an unprecedented “goodbye” to him in a live link from KCRA’s studios in Sacramento to KOVR’s in West Sacramento.
Stan did come back to KCRA to celebrate the station’s 60th anniversary. “We didn’t make the salaries that they made in San Francisco or Los Angeles,” he pointed out, “even though we were pulling ratings much better than any of those people. But the important thing was that the work was good.”
The “work” shifted after retirement. Stan was beloved for helping his community, particularly through nonprofit work. He was one of the first senior citizens to get a COVID shot in order to ease people’s fears. He celebrated his 90th birthday with his family.
More importantly he touched the lives of generations of journalists who owe “the man who owned Sacramento” a debt of gratitude for paving the way.
The studio he stood in all those years ago is still here. As he put it looking through the screen to each viewer on the other side: “this old studio has seen a lot of news programs, but none as important as the one we’ll do next.”
