Doug Sovern began his journalism career as a copy boy at The New York Times. He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1985, to play bass with Nice Boys From New York. Needing a day job, he fell into radio as a production assistant at K-101 FM, in the days before deregulation, when every radio station had a news department. He soon became a street reporter, then Sports Director and Assistant News Director, and hosted his own talk show. He also became the Northern California Correspondent for Associated Press Radio. In 1990, Doug worked briefly at KGO Radio in San Francisco before joining KCBS, California’s legendary all-news radio giant, and the oldest radio station in America (born in 1909!). Doug spent 35 years at KCBS, retiring in 2025. Doug covered politics for KCBS as Political Reporter from 2006-25, and also did many special features and award-winning investigations. Weekday afternoons at 3:30, he hosted the live interview program, “The State of California,” exploring politics and public policy. He reported occasionally for KPIX-TV Channel 5, where he also co-hosted or appeared on numerous TV specials, town halls and candidate debates. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Doug has won more than 250 journalism awards, including a duPont-Columbia Award Special Citation, 16 National Headliner Awards, 12 national Edward R. Murrow Awards, and nine Sigma Delta Chi Awards from the national Society of Professional Journalists. The SPJ has honored Doug for Best Investigative Reporting six different times. Doug was also the first three-time winner of the AP TV/Radio Association’s Best Reporter of the Year Award (which covers 13 western states) and won it five times overall. He’s also won the California Journalism Award, the John Swett Award, the Gracie Award, the Mark Twain Award and many others. In 2017, he was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame. In 2025, the San Francisco Press Club honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Doug reported for KCBS from every continent except Antarctica. He reported from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake and New York City after the 9/11 terrorist attack. He covered the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the 1991 East Bay Firestorm, the Los Angeles riots in 1992, a deadly expedition on Mt. Everest in 2000 and the London bombings in 2005. He has done award-winning specials for KCBS from China, Africa, Mexico and the Tour de France. He covered every presidential campaign from 1988-2024 and interviewed almost every major presidential candidate, and many of the minor ones, during that span.

An avid outdoorsman, Doug chronicled some of his adventures on KCBS, including climbing expeditions on Everest and Kilimanjaro, and bike rides across California, Alaska, Texas and Vietnam for AIDS and cancer charities.

In a career packed with memorable moments, Doug says the two that stand out most are when the Dalai Lama taught him about the impermanence of all things (in 1989, just before the deadly Loma Prieta earthquake, which Doug narrowly survived but which killed his former housemate), and when he caught and saved Mother Teresa when she fell down some stairs at her AIDS hospice in San Francisco, for which she gave him a medal.

RADIO ARCHIVES:

Stories from the October 2017 Wine Country Firestorm:

The Hero of Mayacamas Ranch. Two reports, returning to the ruins of the resort/retreat devoured by the fire, with the chef who saved 18 lives there while losing his home, his job and his life savings.

The Miracle of Triple S: two reports from the only resort on Mountain Home Ranch Road that was NOT destroyed by the fires, thanks to the heroic all-night stand by its owner and staff:

(For stories from the 2016 election, please see the separate ELECTION COVERAGE page)

Some of Doug’s other reports over the years for KCBS. There are too many to include here, but here’s a sampling:

UNHOLY WATER: Our duPont-Columbia and SPJ-winning exposé of how the San Francisco Archdiocese installed an illegal plumbing system to pour water on homeless people to keep them from sleeping outside St. Mary’s Cathedral. Parts 1-5 (2015)

AFTERSHOCK: The Continuing Crisis in Haiti, Parts 1-5 (2/69.195.124.111/~dougsove/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Part-Two-Aftershock_-The-Continuing-Crisis-in-Ha/69.195.124.111/~dougsove/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Part-Four-Aftershock_-The-Continuing-Crisis-in-Haration of Barack Obama, January 20, 2009 (in these three reports, you can hear what four days of nonstop reporting in way below zero weather did /69.195.124.111/~dougsove/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/inau Katrina, New Orleans, 2005 (5 of the many, many reports filed from the field /69.195.124.111/~dougsove/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/03-Baton-Ro/69.195.124.111/~dougsove/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/21-Shelter-Kance – one report from 2004, one from 2005. Note Lance still insisting he’s dr/69.195.124.111/~dougsove/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/02-TDF-05.m4a”][/audio]

Schwarzenegger in China – one of the reports from the Governator’s 2005 trade : an only in Berkeley feature he London Bombings, 2005 – one of many a special documentary on children living in San Francisco’s most dangerous housing project, 2013:

Through The Roof, a 5-part series on the Bay Area’s affordable housing crisis, 2014:

Whale Watching (actually, hugging, petting & flossing) in Baja California, Mexico, 2013:

“AIDS In Africa: Faces of Hope” (2009)  – A documentary special I did in East Africa (runs 22:38):