The News Vault from KCBS Radio

This collection of pieces by KCBS Radio reporters came from the week of February 17-21, 1986, when historic rainfall inundated Northern California. Reporters include Barry Simmons, Mike Sugerman, Ken Bastida, Jerry Wilcox, Lynn Jimenez, and Wayne Jordan.

A special edition of the "KCBS NewsMagazine", hosted by Michael Dixon. This remote broadcast in the summer of 1983 originates from the Santa Clara County Fair in San Jose. Al Hart and Harvey Steiman, who host the "KCBS Kitchen", have joined Dixon for this broadcast. Segment includes local newsbreak anchored by Al Helmso and a portion of a CBS hourly newscast anchored by Douglas Edwards.

During his 1987 visit to the United States and Canada, Pope John Paul II spent two days in Northern California. KCBS Radio reporters stayed with the pontiff during those two days, covering a Papal Mass at Laguna Seca Raceway, visits to the Basilica of the Mission of San Carlos in Carmel and Mission Dolores in San Francisco, a event at Saint Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, and his final stop, a...

A winter freeze in early 1991 severely damaged millions of dollars’ worth of California crops. But there was also a human toll. On May 29, 1991, KCBS Radio broadcast a special report, “Bleak Harvest”, examining the plight of farmworkers whose lives were made worse by the freeze. KCBS Radio’s Rebecca Corral reported from the Salinas-Watsonville agricultural area.   The...

In 1968, attorney Roy Cohn sat down for an interview with KCBS Radio anchor Frank Knight. At that time, Cohn was less than twenty years removed from his roles in the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg case and the Army-McCarthy hearings, and his work with clients like Aristotle Onassis and Donald Trump was still in the future.

On July 26, 1993, a railroad car being unloaded at the General Chemical plant in Richmond began to leak.  A massive toxic cloud of sulfuric acid soon spread for miles, sending thousands of people for medical treatment.  Eventually, 60,000 people would file claims and lawsuits against General Chemical. KCBS Radio anchors Lois Melkonian, Al Hart  and Bob Price are heard on this reel o...

The legendary broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite was interviewed for the weekly KCBS Radio series "In Depth" by Rebecca Corral and Ed Cavagnaro in a segment that originally aired on February 16, 1997

After the jury verdict acquitting four Los Angeles Police officers of criminal charges in the Rodney King beating, rioting claimed more than 60 lives, did over a billion dollars in damage, and led to more than 12,000 arrests. On June 26, 1992, KCBS Radio broadcast a special report called "Beyond the Anger", looking at the issues of inner-city hopelessness and poverty, as well as signs of positive...

The winter of 1986 saw two weeks of non-stop rain inundate Northern California. The wettest day of that stretch was Monday February 17th, when 10 weather stations scattered across northern California reported 24-hour rainfall totals of more than 10 inches. This segment is captured as KCBS Radio began its 9 p.m. hour. Wayne Jordan is anchoring, with reporters Bob Melrose and Lynn Jimenez contr...

In 1985, KCBS Radio reporter Barbara Taylor, a longtime San Francisco City Hall reporter, produced a 28-minute "KCBS Reports" segment on the mayoral administration of Dianne Feinstein. By then, Feinstein had already been an elected official in San Francisco for 16 years.

This episode of the KCBS Radio interview series "In Depth" featured former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. The interviewers are KCBS Radio Anchor Mike Pulsipher and News Director Ed Cavagnaro.

On October 8, 1968, Black Panther leader and Peace and Freedom Party Presidential candidate Eldridge Cleaver held a news conference in Oakland.  He reacted to the news that the Supreme Court of the United States had refused to intervene in Cleaver's battle to appear on the California ballot in the 1968 Presidential election. California Secretary of State Frank M. Jordan had ruled that since C...

On January 7, 1958, KCBS Radio news editor Dick Leonard appeared as a witness in a San Francisco criminal trial. Leonard's appearance was noteworthy not just because a journalist had been called to testify, but also because Superior Court Judge Raymond Arata allowed him to record the proceedings with the relatively-new tool for radio reporters: a "Mohawk Midgetape" audio recorder. This audio file...

Between October 12 and 20 1992, KCBS Radio aired a series of pieces by reporter Doug Sovern marking the one-year anniversary of the Oakland Hills firestorm, also known as the Tunnel Fire. That fire killed 25 people and destroyed more than 3,000 homes and apartment units.

On the 25th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, KCBS Radio anchor Stan Bunger compiled a report weaving together excerpts from the 1963 live coverage and memories from Bay Area residents who recalled where they were when they heard the news.  The report begins with the show  Arthur Godfrey Time , which was airing on KCBS Radio when the reports began to stream i...

On New Year’s Eve 2000, KCBS Radio re-broadcast a special report entitled “Drinking and Driving—The Killer Next Door”.  Reporter Mike Sugerman took listeners beyond the statistics and inside the personal stories.

On April 16, 1992 KCBS Radio aired a lengthy interview by reporter Jerry Wilcox with death row inmate Pedro Arias. Wilcox met with Arias at San Quentin Prison, where Arias, a convicted murderer from Sacramento, had been sent two years earlier to await his execution. The interview was broadcast less than a week before the scheduled execution of Robert Alton Harris marked the resumption of execution...

On November 27, 1978, a shocking story unfolded in San Francisco: Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed at City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White. This episode features an unedited "aircheck" of KCBS Radio coverage beginning shortly after 11 a.m., featuring field reports from Jim Hamblin and Barbara Taylor.

Three days after the tumultuous re-opening of what was then called San Francisco State College during a period of campus unrest, interim SF State President S. I. Hayakawa and San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto met with reporters on the evening of December 5, 1968. You'll hear KCBS Radio anchor Frank Knight introduce the station's live coverage.

Student unrest at what was then known as San Francisco State College led to the shutdown of the campus in the fall of 1968. Newly-installed President S. I. Hayakawa ordered the campus re-opened on December 2, 1968, leading to a confrontation between Hayakawa and protesters with a loudspeaker-equipped truck. The next day, he sat down for an extended interview with KCBS Radio Managing Editor Jim Sim...