Longtime Bay Area Broadcaster Van Amburg Dies At 86

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS Radio) -- Longtime Bay Area television news anchor Van Amburg has died at his El Cerrito home. He was 86.

Van Amburg was part of the highly-rated KGO-TV news team in the 1970s and 1980s which also featured co-anchor Jerry Jensen and weatherman Pete "Doc" Giddings.

Born as Fred Van Amburg in Fresno in 1930, Van Amburg attended Berkeley High after his family moved to the Bay Area during World War II. He received a broadcasting degree from San Francisco State and broke into the business covering the 1956 Republican Convention in San Francisco.

Over the years he brought Bay Area viewers all the major news stories including including the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the Jonestown massacre and the assassinations of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk.

Van Amburg also served a stint as the sports director at KPIX 5 and also worked at KFRC, later moving to KNEW radio as a talk-show host.

Van Amburg was fired from KGO in 1986, following a disagreement with station management and never worked in the business again.