Pat Harvey
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Pat Harvey is a broadcast journalist. She joined Walt Disney owned and operated KCAL 9 in Los Angeles in 1989. Joining Jerry Dunphy on the anchor desk, she is the only original KCAL 9 News anchor left. Now working for the nation's largest duopoly, KCBS-TV/KCAL-TV in Los Angeles, she is the longest-running anchor in prime time at one station in Los Angeles and the only African-American female.
In addition to her anchoring duties, Pat has traveled extensively for KCAL, and CBS, covering stories from the Papal Conclave in Rome, the first all-race elections in South Africa, the AIDS epidemic in East Africa and Russia and the civil war in El Salvador. During the O.J. Simpson trial, Pat was the first journalist to interview dismissed juror Jeanette Harris. The report was carried on television stations throughout the country and was seen worldwide.
She has won 12 local Emmy awards, a national Emmy and received the Joseph M. Quinn Lifetime Achievement Award from the L.A. Press Club in 2004. Named "Best News Anchor" by the Associated Press, she has also been recognized by American Women in Radio and Television and the National Association of Black Journalists.
Pat worked in Chicago at WGN Superstation before coming to Los Angeles. Her investigative reports on faulty pap smear tests, which lead to thousands of deaths among women, resulted in legislation regulating cytology labs in Illinois and the closure of one in Southern California. While working for WGN, she also broke a national story from the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988, revealing a change in leadership in the Democratic National Committee.
She is also an original CNN Headline News anchor, joining the start-up network in 1981 and later anchored CNN's morning news program until 1985, interviewing Ferdinand Marcos following the historic democratic elections in the Philippines.
The Detroit native's first news job was in Saginaw, Michigan at NBC affiliate, WNEM-TV.
Because of her popularity and community service, Pat was asked to carry the Olympic torch through downtown Los Angeles in 2002 and received two honorary doctorate degrees in the humanities.
She has been seen in various films, and TV programs, often playing herself.
In 2006, Pat and four other TV anchorwomen formed the Good News Foundation. The group raises money for various causes and awards a scholarship named for the first female broadcaster in Los Angeles to a deserving college student, annually.
