Pat Harvey

(credit: CBS)

Pat Harvey, an award-winning broadcast journalist, was named co-anchor of CBS 2′s weekday 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts in April 2010. She joined CBS 2 following 20 years with sister station KCAL 9 as one of the original anchors of the nation’s first nightly three-hour primetime newscast.

In February 2012, Harvey was recognized for her achievements as a television news anchor and reporter by being inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

She is also the recipient of two lifetime achievement awards. Harvey received the Joseph M. Quinn Lifetime Achievement award from the L.A. Press Club in 2004 and was awarded the Golden Mike for Lifetime Achievement from the Radio and Television News Association in January 2010.

In recognition of her 20th anniversary with KCAL and contributions to the people of Southern California, the Los Angeles City Council and L.A. County Board of Supervisors declared October 30, 2009 “Pat Harvey Day” by proclamation.

In addition to her anchoring and reporting duties, Harvey has appeared nationally as a guest co-host on “The Talk” several times during the CBS Television Network daytime talk show’s first two seasons.

Harvey regularly reports on issues of concern to Southern California and the world. In January 2009, she attended the inauguration of President Barack Obama and filed live reports for CBS 2 and KCAL 9 from Washington, D.C. Later that year, Harvey followed the story of a homeless painter from the streets of Los Angeles to a gallery in Paris.

In 2008, she conducted an exclusive interview with the Cobles, a couple who lost their three children in a horrific truck crash in Orange County. The interview and subsequent investigations into the trucking industry, lead to calls for safety regulations. That same year, Harvey received the Genii Award for excellence in TV broadcasting from Southern California’s chapter of American Women in Radio and Television. She is only the second TV news journalist in the chapter’s nearly 60-year history to receive the honor. In 2010, she, along with her co-chairs for The Good News Foundation received the AWRT Inspiration Award, for their charitable work.

Her live reports from Rome in 2005, where she covered the Papal conclave from Vatican City, included an interview with Los Angeles Cardinal Mahoney on the night before the secret conclave.

A 19-time Emmy award winner, Harvey was awarded the Emmy for a multiple report on basketball great “Magic” Johnson a decade after he was diagnosed with HIV. In 2001, she took home an Emmy for a series of reports from East Africa on the AIDS epidemic and the brutal centuries-old practice of female genital mutilation. Several years earlier, her reports on the first all-race election in South Africa brought honors from the New York Television and Film Festival. Harvey’s documentary entitled “Sex and AIDS in Russia” received multiple honors, as did a documentary and multi-part series called “Women and AIDS.”

Other awards include being named “Best News Anchor” by the Associated Press, a national Emmy, seven Golden Mikes, a national American Women in Radio & Television award, the Society of Professional Journalists award for investigative reporting, the Edward R. Murrow award presented to KCAL news for overall excellence and honors from the National Association of Black Journalists, L.A. Press Club and Hollywood Women’s Press Club.

The veteran newswoman has anchored live coverage for KCAL, from the riots following the verdict in the Rodney King case, to the fires, floods and the devastating earthquake in 1994. During the O.J. Simpson trial, Harvey landed the first interview with dismissed juror Jeanette Harris, which was seen worldwide and changed the way we view our criminal justice system. She also hosted several high-profile town hall meetings for KCAL, which included the war in Somalia and a two-hour live broadcast from Los Angeles featuring representatives from the White House, local and state political and community leaders and residents affected by the riots.

She also anchored KCAL’s political coverage from the Democratic conventions in Chicago and Los Angeles; and in Atlanta for WGN in 1988, where she broke a national news story regarding the change of leadership in the DNC.

Harvey began her television career in 1976 in her native city of Detroit. In 1979, she became a general assignment reporter in Saginaw, Michigan where she later produced and anchored the station’s evening newscasts.

In 1981, she helped launch CNN Headline News in Atlanta, becoming one of its original anchors. Later, she anchored CNN’s Daybreak newscast, where she regularly interviewed heads of state and other dignitaries.

Harvey joined Chicago Superstation WGN as a news anchor in 1985, where she was seen on cable systems throughout the United States and South America. While working for WGN, Pat was invited to Brisbane, Australia to co-anchor an hour newscast.

Her most rewarding work is reporting stories that have had a major impact on people’s lives. In 1988, Pat went to Capitol Hill and testified in the Illinois state legislature following her investigative reports on the high number of deaths of women from faulty pap smears. As a result, the Governor of Illinois signed into law new health legislation to regulate cytology labs in the state. A lab in Tarzana, California responsible for many of those defective smears was shut down.

Harvey also traveled to El Salvador during that country’s civil war for a sensitive report on the “Children of War” for KCAL. The series resulted in the fitting of artificial limbs for an orphan, an innocent victim of the war.

Active in community affairs, Harvey has received the Silver Star Award from the YMCA and the Ida B. Wells Award from the NAACP along with several other honors. In 1999, she was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in the humanities from American Intercontinental University. In 2005, she was awarded another honorary doctorate from Mt. St. Mary’s College. In 2002, Harvey was one of several local personalities chosen to carry the Olympic Torch through Los Angeles.

Pat is a co-chair of the Good News Foundation, a group that also includes four other television newswomen in Los Angeles. The organization is dedicated to making a positive and meaningful difference in the lives of people in need and at risk in greater Los Angeles. The group awards annual scholarships to deserving, future broadcast journalists. In its five years of existence the Good News Foundation has been honored by the Downtown Women’s Center, Los Angeles League of Women Voters and the Central City Business Association of Los Angeles.