Sylvia Chase

Sylvia Belle Chase (February 23, 1938 – January 3, 2019) was an American broadcast journalist. She was a correspondent for ABC's 20/20 from its inception until 1985, when she left to become a news anchor at KRON-TV in San Francisco; in 1990 she returned to ABC News in New York.

Early life and education Chase was born in Northfield, Minnesota, where she graduated from Northfield High School. She was the youngest of three children. Her aunt was a radio announcer in Minneapolis, and in junior high school Sylvia and her sister produced a local radio show on news from the school.

Her parents divorced early in her childhood and she had foster parents; she refused a scholarship from Wellesley College to join her sister studying at the University of California in Los Angeles, where her father was living, but he died shortly before she started classes.

Career Chase managed the UCLA urban extension program; after graduation she was a temporary secretary and receptionist and modeled on weekends at I. Magnin; persuading the network to cover stories such as the Coalition of Labor Union Women conference in 1974 in Chicago, and serving as a role model; she also headed the CBS employees' women's rights group that presented a list of concerns to the network president, Arthur Taylor. She anchored CBS Newsbreak and hosted the daytime Magazine news show, and also made appearances on 60 Minutes. At the time of her move she denied a connection, and that her resignation was related to that of Geraldo Rivera, who left shortly before her after criticizing the decision. and frequently reported on the AIDS crisis and on children.

In late 1990, she returned to ABC News in New York, telling the San Francisco Chronicles columnist Herb Caen, "I hate to leave the Bay Area, but if I’m going to get mugged it might as well be in New York". Following her investigative report on the death of Kimberly Bergalis, the US Centers for Disease Control and the American Dental Association both increased requirements for sterilization of dental equipment.

In 2001, when ABC cutbacks led to her contract not being renewed, she moved to PBS, where she was a contributing correspondent for Now with Bill Moyers and the narrator on Exposé: America's Investigative Reports. She retired to Belvedere, California.

Awards Chase's awards included the 1983 Pinnacle Award in Television News, the 1983 National Headliner Award for Outstanding Investigative Reporting, and two Emmy Awards for her 20/20 work, a Peabody Award for a KRON documentary on homeless children in 1989, three further Emmy awards for local news, the National Headliner Award in 1979, 1983, and 1994, and the 1991 Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications. She also received duPont-Columbia and Washington Press Club awards.

Personal life and death While in college Chase married Robert Rosenstone, a graduate student in journalism who became a history professor at the California Institute of Technology, and moved with him to Wisconsin; she returned to UCLA when they separated two years later, and they subsequently divorced. She had both a professional and a personal relationship with producer Stanhope Gould, whom she met at CBS and with whom she shared an Emmy for a report on cars with exploding gasoline tanks and also collaborated on the Monroe report and at KRON; they traveled together to Russia.

In retirement, she volunteered at De Marillac Academy, a Catholic middle school in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco; she made a documentary about one family whose children attended the school.

Chase was diabetic. She died on January 3, 2019, at the age of 80, after undergoing treatment for brain cancer.