Stan Atkinson

Stan Atkinson
Atkinson (left) undercover in Afghanistan with the Mujahadin
News Anchor for KCRA
In office 1959–1963
News Anchor for KCRA
In office 1976–1994
News Anchor for KOVR
In office 1994–1999
Personal details
Born	(1932-11-11)November 11, 1932
Died	May 25, 2025(2025-05-25) (aged 92)
Alma mater	Pasadena City College
Awards	Three Emmys for each of his two assignments inside Afghanistan, and another for a documentary he produced while covering Somalia in 1981

Stan Atkinson (November 11, 1932 – May 25, 2025) was an American television news reporter and anchor.

Career

Atkinson was a reporter who regularly travelled to the world's most turbulent places to bring a deeper insight to the local evening news. He covered 18 countries-in-crisis in 31 assignments.

Atkinson studied journalism at Pasadena City College prior to U.S. Army service during the Korean War in the early 1950s. He was an instructor on Fort Ord’s faculty teaching 20,000 trainees and rapidly rising to the rank of Sergeant. He was one of 25 (out of 200) reporters selected for the prestigious Ford Foundation Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University in 1967.

He was chased down by a Soviet helicopter gunship in Afghanistan (he was there twice, in 1982 and 1985), plus held up and robbed by leftist guerrillas in El Salvador, and shot at in Cambodia.

In January 1996, Atkinson covered the presence of U.S. Forces in Bosnia. In May 1997, he made his ninth trip to Hong Kong since 1961 to report on the historic reunification with Communist China.

He slipped across Marxist-controlled borders with resistance fighters to produce documentaries in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, and Central America.

Atkinson reported from Baghdad just before Operation Desert Storm began, and from Kuwait a month after it was liberated. In October 1993, just after the downing of two U.S. Blackhawk helicopters, and the resultant withdrawal of American forces, he covered the collapse of a nation into anarchy in his reports from Somalia.

In April 1994, Atkinson covered the remarkable transition of South Africa, as their citizens voted in the country's first all-race, democratic election. That was his third assignment in South Africa since 1984.

Atkinson also had a long history with Vietnam. He was there twice—in 1961 and 1962—when it was still "The Dirty Little War" in the south. His documentary, "The Village That Refused to Die," told the story of fighting priest Father Nguyễn Lạc Hoá and his village of Binh Hung, who were fighting back against the Viet Cong.

In 1987, he took former Green Beret Captain B.T. Collins back to Vietnam. They were the first Americans to drive through the country since the war. They traveled from Hanoi to the Delta, to the very spot where Collins lost an arm and a leg in an ambush 20 years before. Atkinson later joined Collins as a principal fundraiser who helped raise money to erect the $2.2 million California Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the grounds of California State Capitol Park.

He won three Emmy Awards for his two assignments inside Afghanistan, and another for a documentary he produced while covering Somalia in 1981.

Atkinson was the 1989 winner of the George Washington Medal for Individual Achievement from the Freedom Foundation in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. He was also a recipient of the World Affairs Council Award for International Reporting, and the Albert and Mary Lasker Award for Medical Journalism.

Personal life

He resided in Sacramento and contributed to the community until his death on May 25, 2025, at the age of 92.

Further reading

• Baker, Steve (2008). "Chatting with Stan Atkinson". californiaconversations.com. Retrieved August 4, 2019.

External links

• Stan Atkinson at IMDb