Pamela Kahn Baca Papers

Pamela Kahn Baca (1953-1999) worked as a producer on ABC News' Nightline from 1980 to 1991. Born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, she attended the University of Arizona but later transferred to Boston University, where she received a B.A. summa cum laude in 1975 with a double major in broadcast journalism and political science.

In 1975, Pamela Kahn returned to Phoenix where she worked as a reporter and news editor for KRUX Radio. Here, she was the first to break the national story of the murder of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles. Her later broadcast news career (under the name of Pamela Kahn) included working as a producer, assignment editor, and reporter for NBC affiliate KVOA-TV, Tucson (1976-1977); 10:00 p.m. weekday producer and assignment editor for NBC affiliate KTAR-TV, Phoenix (1977-1978); and 11:00 p.m. weekday producer for NBC owned and operated affiliate WBZ-TV of Boston (1978-1980).

In 1980, Ted Koppel (anchor) and William Lord (vice president and executive producer) hired Kahn as associate producer on the original Nightline staff. She field-produced programs all over the world, especially in war zones such as Lebanon, El Salvador, and the Faulkland Islands, provided coverage of the wars in Latin America during the mid-1980s, and covered the assassination attempt on former President Reagan as well as Reagan's trip to China. She pioneered an innovative, correspondent-less journalistic style called petaques in which the subjects tell the story without additional narration by a correspondent. Kahn was promoted to producer in December of 1981 and quickly became known as one of the top producers at Nightline. In addition, she became senior producer of ABC's World News This Morning (1983-1984) and also served as a producer of World News This Evening.

Pamela Kahn's many honors included two Emmy Awards: a 1984 News-Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Background Analysis of a Single Current Story (The Hostage Crisis Five Years Later) and a 1986 News-Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Coverage of a Single Breaking News Story (Pan Am Flight 73 Hijack). In 1990, she received a Community Service Award from the University of New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry Mental Health Center and the American Society of Suicide Prevention for her contributions to adolescent suicide prevention through her year-long documentary coverage (aired in 1988) of the spate of teen suicides in Bergenfield, New Jersey in the late 1980s.

Pamela Kahn Baca returned to Phoenix in 1992 and married in 1994. She died in 1999 after a long illness.

Compiled from information provided by Honorable Marcy L. Kahn, donor.