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A voice for the African American community. It was the goal of the Sacramento Observer when it was founded and it still is, says founder and publisher William H. Lee.

Though he had no training in the newspaper business, Lee used the business acumen he gained from classes at Sac State and UC Berkeley to establish the Observer in 1962. The award-winning paper has been a training and proving ground for countless journalists and photographers ever since.

But the path to community institution was far from a straight one.

Post-graduation, Lee worked for Aerojet and later in real estate. Off the job, he was becoming increasingly involved in community work when he realized, “There was very little being done to keep the African American community informed,” Lee says. “The local dailies were not talking about African Americans. It was tough to find evidence in the paper that we, in fact, lived, died or gave birth to our children—that African Americans were having fruitful lives in the region.”

One result was the formation of the Men’s Civic League, an organization of African American businessmen, doctors, attorneys, engineers and other professionals. Six members of the group, interested in providing a communication vehicle for the community, approached the publisher of Sacramento Outlook, an occasional church publication, with the idea of creating a community paper for African Americans. It didn’t go well.

“We bought the Outlook but we didn’t have any newspaper experience,” Lee says. What’s more, when they sent the newly formatted Outlook to the church mailing list, readers reacted strongly, Lee says. “They said, ‘What are you doing with our paper?’ Out of a sense of respect for them we decided we not continue to publish.”

But Lee felt the community still needed a voice. In 1962, Lee, along with radioman Geno Gladden and businessman John Cole, launched The Sacramento Observer, “The paper with the eye for the news.” This time they added professional support in the form of a manager and an editor, but, Lee says, “We were losing our shirts.” In spite of the challenges, Lee assumed control of the paper in 1965.

“My Sac State training said I should be able to turn this around,” the determined Lee felt at the time.

Five years later the Observer, through Lee’s leadership and dedication, was named the number one black newspaper in America, a remarkable achievement considering that at the time there were about 300 black newspapers in the country.

The success attracted some top writers to the paper, many of whom have gone on to work in the State Capitol. “We produced several outstanding writers,” Lee says. “We knew we were making an impact when area dailies began hiring our African American staff.”

To continue to build those ranks, The Observer Education Foundation has created its own public policy journalism school.

The Observer also hosts the annual Black Expo, which draws more than 50,000 people.

Today The Observer is considered an essential stop on the campaign trail for most major candidates. The paper’s hallways are filled with photos of political leaders and other celebrities—ranging from governors to musicians to athletes—who have come through Sacramento over the years. —Laurie Hall





Broadcaster Kitty O’Neal (’79, Communication Studies) is known for covering the flashy side of news—the Red Carpet at the Academy Awards, “American Idol” and even a Presidential inauguration.

But it is the serious news on crime, flooding and power outages that O’Neal holds most dear.

“That’s when I feel like people are really depending on us,” O’Neal says. “That’s when I really want to get it right.”

O’Neal’s vocal command of news copy has made her a mainstay at NewsTalk 1530 KFBK for 24 years–16 as afternoon news anchor. Not a small feat in an industry that often replaces broadcasters faster than today’s headlines.

She attributes her longevity to her genuine persona. “I try to be the same person on the air that I am off the air,” she says, although admitting to picking up the pace a bit. “What you hear is what you get in real life. I just talk. I don’t do a radio voice.”

O’Neal started her KFBK career as a temporary employee in 1984.

“My very, very first big mistake was 20 years ago when I said ‘Nicauwagwan Webels,’” O’Neal laughs. Since then, the increasing speed of news and a broader interest in international stories has provided her with ample tongue twisters.

But her listeners would scarcely know it. Without a missing a clever intonation in a 60-second spot, O’Neal can report on the recent San Francisco Zoo’s tiger attack, the Governor’s proposed budget cuts in education and the latest tawdry Hollywood scandal, all sandwiched between lead-ins to weather and traffic.

O’Neal was hired permanently by the station in 1985, broadcasting live morning news features and producing “The Rush Limbaugh Show.” She then worked seven years as the news director for FM station KGBY Y-92, still working part time on KFBK’s morning show and as an entertainment reporter for then-KOVR Channel 13. At KFBK, she also added entertainment reports and movie reviews to her cachet.

These days, she voices her daily on-air celebrity column, dubbed “Kitty’s Litter.” O’Neal has also taken on a new direction, conducting more on-air interviews with callers and guests along with her co-host, former Sacramento Bee columnist and Sac State alum R.E. Graswich.

O’Neal is a yearly fixture in Sacramento Magazine’s “Best Of” issue, which regularly names her Best Afternoon Radio Personality. Countless awards line her office walls, among them the Sac State Distinguished Service Award she received in 2002.

Overall, she is grateful for being entrusted to deliver the news. “To have access to a microphone and speak to thousands of people daily is an immense privilege and one I never take lightly or for granted,” she says. —Robyn Eifertsen






For any student, or parent for that matter, who thinks college should be completed in four years, Cristina Mendonsa (’96, Government/ Journalism) has news for you.

“It took me a long time to get through,” Mendonsa says. “I didn’t do the four-year plan, I did the eight-year plan.”

Mendonsa is one of Sacramento’s most successful television broadcast journalists. What you see on the air on News10 at 5, 6 and 11 p.m., and at News10.net, is what you get. And what does it take to be successful in the television news business?

“A sense of humor helps,” Mendonsa says. “You can’t be a linear thinker in a newsroom. There’s too much going on. It’s never boring.” The newsroom this Super Tuesday evening is noisy. Police scanners are incessantly beeping and there are always telephones screaming for attention.

But Mendonsa remains calm in the midst of chaotic breaking news and on-air studio madness.

Mendonsa spent eight years attending classes at the Sac State while working full time in any media job she could get. It was the only way to break into the competitive television news business, Mendonsa says.

“It was exciting. I was working in the business as a radio reporter while I was going to Sac State,” Mendonsa says. “I had (the late mayor) Joe Serna as one of my professors, so I would take notes at his lectures in the day time and in the afternoon I’d interview him on some city government issue, so it was kind of funny.”

Why take the long, difficult road to her government-journalism degree?

“No money,” she says with a laugh. “I was poor and had to work my way through college. I had a love of journalism in high school, but my exposure to professors at Sac State—who had a real-life role to play in the political world—really sparked my passion for politics,” Mendonsa says. “It’s great to be in the city of Sacramento where you have that laboratory we call the Capitol. It’s a great place to study while learning journalism skills.”

Mendonsa has won numerous professional awards, including two Emmys: one in the “serious news feature” reporting category for her work on identity theft, and another in the “breaking news” category. Before joining News10 in 1995, Mendonsa anchored the number one-rated morning news program for KUSA-TV in Denver.

Mendonsa praises University staff and faculty for helping her achieve her educational goal.

“They really helped make it work for me,” Mendonsa says. “I would drive home and see my counselor, discuss the course work I was doing in Denver and they would have the department heads approve the classes.” —Gloria Moraga






Hurry up and wait. Dann Shively (70, Speech) did a lot of that in the Marine Corps, and since breaking news doesn’t happen every minute of the day, that motto sometimes rings true for him as a helicopter reporter for KCRA 3.

“The life of a helicopter reporter is not as glamorous as it might seem. Some days are very slow,” he says. “Sometimes there’s a lot of waiting around in the hangar.”

Shively has had a fixed-wing pilot’s license since 1971 and a helicopter license since 1976, but his true passion is broadcasting. “My first job was at a radio station in Vallejo when I was 12,” he says. “I swept the floors, took out the trash, mowed the lawn and did all the odd jobs just so I could be around radio.”

Shively was a Sac State student in the late 60s. “Back in those days there was no communication studies major. You had speech with five areas of concentration: teaching, therapy, public address, theater and broadcasting.”

He was a few credits short of graduating when he was drafted into the Marine Corps at the height of the Vietnam War. “I was enlisted for two years, but it was a good experience,” he says.

It probably helped that he was assigned to the public affairs office in Okinawa, Japan and that on weekends, he was allowed to deejay on the American Forces Radio and Television Service network at Kadena Air Base, Japan—a 20-minute motorcycle ride away.

During his overseas tour, he continued working on his degree through correspondence and graduated from Sac State in 1970. “I really liked being at Sac State. Of course, the student radio station was nothing like it is today. It was a little 10-watt station that could only transmit about a mile from campus. But, we got to do everything from production to performance and it really prepared me for the real world.” —Michael A. Ward





It’s 5 a.m. You’ve just stumbled out of bed, turned on the television, and here are all these perky people doing crazy stunts, live interviews with off-beat subjects, throwing things at one another, and generally having a terrific time.

Is it as much fun to work at CW Channel 31’s “Good Day Sacramento” as it is to watch?

“We have so many laughs,” says Tina Macuha (’85, Communication Studies/Geography). Courtney Dempsey (’97, Communication Studies) says management allows them to have real on-air relationships with one another, which gets the viewers involved with the “Good Day” family. “And that’s why they feel like they’ve known us for so long.”

The on-air camaraderie extends behind the scenes as well. “That is a show in itself,” Macuha says. “We have so much fun during the commercial breaks.”

Macuha is a Sacramento native who dabbled with a handful of majors at Sac State before trying communication. “And it fit,” she says. “Everything fit. Everything fell into line.” Even then, she was preparing for the “Good Day” style of television. One of her professors was startled to walk into class one day to find the students all dancing while Macuha stood on the counter, lip-synching Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.”

Dempsey is from Vallejo and came to Sac State because she wanted to attend school away from home, but her parents didn’t want her too far away. She considered being a writer at one point, but then took a couple of communication classes. “I just fell in love with it,” she says.

If there’s any drawback, it’s getting up at 3 a.m. But Macuha says there seems to be a computer chip inside you that puts your mouth on autopilot. “And the chip says, ‘Be perky, be upbeat, talk. Turn it on.’”

The two have stayed in Sacramento because it’s home, where they want to raise their families. And Dempsey also credits having a great cast of co-workers. “This is an amazing group of people to work with. If I didn’t like them so much, I probably would have tried to work somewhere else.” —Craig Koscho






Little did sportswriter Sam Amick (’00, Journalism) know that when he took on the Sacramento Kings beat in 2005 that he would become such an authority on coaching strategy—the strategy behind picking them that is.

“My relatively short tenure on the beat has made me an unofficial expert on covering coaches’ searches,” says The Sacramento Bee reporter. Soon after Amick came on board, Kings team management declined to re-sign Rick Adelman, hired Eric Musselman, fired Musselman after only one year, then brought in current coach Reggie Theus.

Amick found himself traveling back and forth to owners Joe and Gavin Maloof’s Palms Casino in Las Vegas “pulling every trick in the book” to try to find out the names of the Kings’ coaching candidates.

“There have definitely been times when Vegas felt like my home away from home,” he says. “I remember taking one flight from Sacto to Vegas where I wound up sitting next to the candidate I was heading out to cover.”

Amick got his reporting feet wet lakeside, as a student covering Sac State’s women’s rowing team for The State Hornet.

“Looking back on it, I got a kick out of something I didn’t know would be so much fun,” says Amick, recalling how the coach had to walk him through the day’s competition. “That was a real positive first experience—to try to take something not a lot of people know about and make it interesting.”

After graduating he wrote as an intern for The Stockton Record. He later joined the Bee’s regional section Neighbors before being hired onto the sports page.

He now reports courtside covering the Kings at home and away.

Fans can spot him close to the action, filing his game story by 11 p.m. “I try to stay on top of it all before a game starts,” he says. “To see who’s mad they aren’t getting the ball enough…”

Although he picks up a lot of frequent flyer miles, such as on a recent five-day trek following the team to Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and Seattle, Amick is grateful to still be in Sacramento. “I feel lucky to get this kind of a job in the town where I started,” he says.

—Robyn Eifertsen



When the Sacramento News and Review started up in 1989, one of those vying for a job was a former State Hornet staff member, Jahn Kloss (’81, Government/Journalism). Almost 20 years later, Kloss is still producing political drawings for the weekly, and teaching sociology and art for campuses in the Los Rios Community College District.

A native of Erie, Pa., Kloss’ infatuation with California politics began immediately after he got off the Greyhound in Sacramento.

Drawn by the view of the Capitol dome, Kloss walked up the street and found himself in a United Farm Workers rally, literally rubbing elbows with UFW President Caesar Chavez.

At Sac State, Kloss worked for the student newspaper, writing and drawing. “I began to notice my drawing was able to get to the point a little more quickly than my writing could.” After graduating he landed a spot in the University’s Capital Fellows program and then completed a master’s degree in social philosophy at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England.

Kloss has always been a political and social activist and has drawn pieces for a number of organizations from environmental to educational causes.

His artistic achievements extend beyond political cartooning.

He’s also a sculptor, and his paintings can be found at various spots around Sacramento.

He could have moved on to a larger stage, and did for a time, drawing a nationally syndicated Sunday comic strip called Wee Do Puzzles. But he likes Sacramento and sees it as a small version of Washington, D.C., with its political vibe, government offices and lobbying groups. “I like hanging around people who think politically and who are activists.”

And he’s quick to credit his professors—in art, journalism and social theory—for setting him on this path. “I feel like I have those people sort of watching over me. I never feel quite alone when I’m at my drawing table.”

—Craig Koscho



There’s an old saying, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Kristina Werner (’97 Communication Studies), can’t do anything about the weather, but she can talk about it, probably better than most.

As a Fox 40 News meteorologist, Werner is responsible for forecasting the Sacramento Region’s sometimes unpredictable weather.

“Weather reporting has a stigma, so you want to be as accurate as possible,” she says.

Werner is usually pretty close in her reporting and she’s not afraid to admit when her forecast is wrong. She has an on-air report card she shares with viewers to track how accurate her forecast was.

“I wouldn’t do that if I wasn’t confident,” she says laughing.

Werner attended American River College after high school and began classes at Sac State in 1995. Like many students, she wasn’t sure of her career path when she began, but found her way when one of her instructors noticed her writing skills.

“(Communication Studies) Professor Chevelle Newsome inspired me to continue to write,” Werner says. “I wasn’t sure if it would be print, broadcasting or speech, but it would involve writing.”

After graduation, Werner began looking for a job as a general news reporter. She says she “fell into the weather” when Channel 31 advertised for a weather intern.

“The station management was looking for someone with a little computer experience to help with weather, and I fell in love with it.”

She spent a few years at a station in Chico but returned to Sacramento in 2000 and moved to Fox 40 taking on general reporting assignments and the weekend weather. She became the station’s full-time meteorologist in 2006.

For Werner, reporting the weather is “one of the coolest jobs there is” mostly because she gets to tell people what she has been working on all day.

“I feel like I’m having a conversation with the viewers,” she says.

-Michael A. Ward


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