Rita Williams

Rita Williams was in that first wave of women journalists on TV and started on-air almost forty years ago. The past 30 years she's worked as a reporter for KTVU-TV in Oakland. The sheriff of San Francisco has called Rita a pit bull dog with a heart… a term she loves because she is known for her digging, her exclusives but also her compassion as a reporter.

Rita’s won several Emmies, Tellies, a PASS award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, a public service award from the Society of Professional Journalists and other awards. Recently, she was one of the lead investigative reporters in the Oakland BART shooting stories that contributed to a prestigious Peabody award and Edward R. Murrow award to KTVU.

Williams also taught broadcast news writing at Stanford and was a Knight Fellow there in 1985-86. She has a master’s in political science/international affairs from George Washington University and a B.A. in journalism from Texas Tech University. She is a former staffer/press secretary for the late Texas Congressman George Mahon, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. She worked as a news reporter at KSAT-TV in Texas from 1975 to 1978. In 1978 she moved to the West Coast, working as news reporter for KQED-TV in San Francisco before she joined KTVU in 1980.

She is married and the proud mother of a son, a recent college graduate.