Former KTVU news director Fred Zehnder, who helped build the station’s nightly newscasts into a ratings juggernaut, died on Sunday after being struck by an alleged drunk driver in Alameda.
Alameda police said Zehnder, 87, was walking in a crosswalk around 10 p.m. when he was hit by a truck at the intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Walnut Street. He died at the scene.
Police said the driver of the vehicle, a 30-year-old Hayward man, remained at the scene and was taken into custody on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. He was booked into Santa Rita Jail with his bail set at $250,000.
A native of Lakeport and graduate of Humboldt State University, Zehnder worked for 21 years at KTVU until his retirement in 1999. During his run at the Oakland-based station, Channel 2 was honored with numerous journalism awards and “The Ten O’Clock News” became the top-rated newscast in the Bay Area market, easily outpacing its rivals. The newscast was so dominant that former KTVU general manager often referred to it as “my Sherman tank.”
KTVU is mourning the loss of former and longtime news director Fred Zehnder killed by an alleged DUI driver. Zehnder was a fixture at KTVU, spending over 20 years at the station. He was instrumental in giving young journalists their start or big break. https://t.co/9pTDtIZwMd pic.twitter.com/awmBeTgtgW
— KTVU (@KTVU) June 29, 2021
Along the way, Zehnder had a hand in guiding the careers of many well-known Bay Area anchors and reporters, including Dennis Richmond, Leslie Griffith, Elaine Corral, Julie Haener and Mark Ibanez.
After leaving KTVU, Zehnder stayed attached to local journalism as the founder of the San Leandro Times and owner of the Castro Valley Forum.
Current and former KTVU journalists recalled Zehnder as “a gentle leader” — a “humble, passionate, honest and brilliant newsman.” When Richmond was contacted by KTVU for a comment on the station’s newscasts this week, he could barely contain himself.
“He was the most wonderful person I ever worked with,” Richmond said, fighting back tears. “… It’s just a horrible, horrible thing what happened to him.”
Current KTVU anchor Julie Haener described Zehnder as “a larger-than-life newsman who we all had so much respect for when it came to news judgment.”
“We all loved him,” she said. “He had a kind of gentle spirit, but also incredible wisdom. He pushed us to do stories that touched people’s lives and he never tried to conform them to any time limit. If the story needed to run longer, it ran longer.”
Former KTVU political reporter Randy Shandobil pointed out that most people “have no idea” who Zehnder was, but said, “Countless Bay Area journalists — especially broadcast journalists — are really heartbroken today.”
Shandobil, who recently had lunch with Zehnder, added that the man who hired him ruled the Channel 2 newsroom “with kindness, rather than an iron fist.”
“Television newsrooms can be back-stabbing and petty places, rife with egos,” he said in a phone conversation. “Fred was the antithesis of that. If you somehow let him down, it didn’t feel like you were letting down your boss. It felt like you were letting a loved one down. … I lost my hero and my friend.”
A former print journalist, Zehnder apparently had no tolerance for the on-screen vanity exuded by some broadcast reporters.
“He had a rule for when we were reporting out in the field,” Shandobil recalled. “He told us, ‘Don’t be on the camera for more than five seconds. I don’t want to see you. I want to see the story.’”
Betty Ann Bruno, a former KTVU reporter, described Zehnder as the station’s “gentle voice of calm and fairness” who set “very high standards for all to meet.
“He was the guardian of everything that is good about journalism,” she added.
Haener said that, even in recent years — long after he left television — Zehnder “still was so excited and passionate about local news.”
“He was happy and healthy and continued to have that cute little laugh that we all remembered,” she said. “That’s why it’s so horribly sad that he went out the way he did.”
In his latter years, Zehnder remained dedicated to journalism, albeit the print version, which he staunchly defended. In a 2020 profile for Castro Valley Today, he said, “A lot of people my age, and even younger, prefer the feeling of paper. They find it easier to read and navigate, more user-friendly I suppose. I view the newspaper like a work of art. The layout, how stories are arranged, how they’re printed; I find beauty in that kind of stuff.”
Fred Zehnder started the San Leandro Times in his retirement from KTVU, later bought the Castro Valley Forum. In both papers/communities, he was a principled leader. He gave me my first column& editorship; and free advice when we started our own weekly in Alameda. @Alameda_Sun
— julia park tracey just the VAX ma'am (@juliaparktracey) June 29, 2021
As an avid reader of the SL Times, especially the letters to the editor, condolences to the family, friends and staff of this paper and the Castro Valley Forum for the tragic loss of Fred Zehnder, its champion of our local news. https://t.co/GzC3KJFZBh
— Ed Hernandez (@EdHernandez_MBA) June 29, 2021