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Wayne Freedman is a former feature reporter for KGO-TV; the ABC owned television station in San Francisco, California.
Freedman was raised in Los Angeles by his parents, Alicia Krug Freedman, a Broadway performer, and Mike Freedman, who worked as a director, producer, and cameraman for ABC for 42 years.[1][2][3][4]
Freedman's education included Hughes Junior High School in Woodland Hills, California.[2] Through his work on the school newspaper, he became published with a regular column in a Los Angeles newspaper at the age of fourteen.[2] Wayne graduated from Chaminade High School 1n 1972, where he participated on the Track Varsity team as a pole vaulter.[5] He worked as an apprentice at KABC-TV while earning a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles.[2] He then studied journalism at the University of Missouri, earning a master's degree in 1978.[2][6]
In the late 1970s Freedman began his television reporting career at WLKY-TV in Louisville, Kentucky before moving to WAVE-TV.[7] Freedman then worked at KDFW-TV in Dallas, Texas and then moved to San Francisco in 1981 to work for KRON-TV.[7] He also worked for the CBS News morning show for a year and a half.[7]
In 1991, he began his tenure at KGO-TV[7] and during his career, his coverage included Russia in 1992 and Hurricane Katrina.[6] Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, he traveled across the United States by train, speaking with people along the way to Ground Zero.[8] In 2006 he repeated this trip to mark the five-year anniversary of the attack.[citation needed]
Freedman is the author of a book, It Takes More Than Good Looks To Succeed In Television Reporting, first published in 2003.[2] In a 2005 review for Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, Lee Hood writes, "Freedman, one of the pre-eminent feature reporters in the country, effectively weaves examples from more than a quarter century of experience in local news (he is now at KGO in San Francisco) and network news (CBS) to illustrate important points about the art of television news reporting."[9] In 2011, his book had been assigned in courses at 50 universities.[2]
Freedman also wrote articles for the Golf Writers Association of America and wrote for the Northern California Golf Guide at KGO-TV.[6]
In 2021, he announced his retirement from KGO-TV.[3]
In 1999, Freedman was featured in the short documentary Wayne Freedman's Notebook by Aaron Lubarsky. In a review for the Chicago Tribune, Steve Johnson writes, "At less than 30 minutes, "Wayne Freedman's Notebook" only suggests what it might have been, an in-depth profile of a haunted but admirable figure and a damning portrait of local TV news painted from an unusual perspective. But it is a vivid and worthwhile illumination of one man with a soul trying to survive within the strictures of a limiting medium."[11]
He lives in Marin County, California. In 2021, he said he plans to move to North Carolina with his wife.[3]
