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Stan Atkinson

American journalist

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ7597533
Source-derived summary

Stan Atkinson (November 11, 1932 – May 25, 2025) was an American television news reporter and anchor.

Career

Stan Atkinson studied journalism at Pasadena City College before serving in the U.S. Army as a Fort Ord Division faculty member. He was a documentary producer, writer, and director for David Wolper Productions, a reporter and anchorman in the San Francisco Bay Area, and NBC Los Angeles, where he covered the Tate-LaBianca murders and the trial of Charles Manson.

He selected all of his assignments himself, many of them dangerous, such as being chased by a Soviet helicopter gunship in Afghanistan, held up and robbed by guerrillas in El Salvador, and shot at in Cambodia. He also covered the presence of U.S. forces in Bosnia, reported on Hong Kong's reunification with China, went to Baghdad and Kuwait before and after Operation Desert Storm, covered the withdrawal of American forces from Somalia, and on his third assignment to South Africa, he covered the transition of South Africa as their citizens voted in the country's first all-race, democratic election.

Atkinson also has a long history with Vietnam. He was there in 1961 and 1962 when it was still "The Dirty Little War" in the south, and in 1987, he took former Green Beret Captain (the late B.T. Collins) back to Vietnam.

Atkinson retired in July 1999 after 46 years in television and radio. He was the principal news anchor and reporter for KCRA 3 Sacramento for 23 years. Then, he spent 5 years at KOVR 13 anchoring and reporting on the weekday newscasts.

Editorial summary

“Stan Atkinson” enters the record as american journalist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Stan, Atkinson and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1932, 2025, 1961, 1962—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1932-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Stan, Atkinson and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Stan Atkinson” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Stan, Atkinson and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7597533. VIAF identifies the subject as 26980440. The Library of Congress control number is nr98043027. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 2025, 1961 and 1962.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Stan Atkinson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Stan Atkinson primary sources, Stan Atkinson archive and Stan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Stan Atkinson”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Stan Atkinson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.