SAN FRANCISCO — A longtime fixture of the KPIX 5 newsroom will be moving on after Tuesday’s primary election as anchor and reporter Allen Martin retires from broadcasting.
Martin spent 18 years at KPIX 5, starting as a freelance reporter covering the Scott Peterson trial. He would eventually take over the weekend anchor desk, replacing Doug Murphy behind the news desk on Saturdays and Sundays. He would eventually become a weeknight anchor, sharing the desk with co-anchor Elizabeth Cook for the 5 p.m. news while still frequently reporting at night.
Allen started in broadcasting when, as a junior at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, he produced a radio talk show for KLOS. In his senior year he took a job as a disc jockey in Sacramento – flying up on the weekends to work and back for school during the week.
After graduating, he worked in radio news in Sacramento, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
In 1983, he moved to Atlanta for a job at a news talk radio station. Allen was hired at CNN’s Radio network before taking a TV writing job at CNN’s Headline News.
He would work his first on-air television job in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1986, later spending time anchoring and reporting at the Salinas NBC affiliate– where he worked with the popular Dina Ruiz, who was married to Clint Eastwood — and in Oklahoma City.
He made his way back to Northern California in 1998, working on the Monterey Peninsula as anchor and assistant news director for the CBS/FOX affiliate stations. Six years later, he returned to the Bay Area and KPIX 5.
Allen has won multiple Emmy Awards during his nearly two decades at KPIX, in addition to serving as a mentor to many in the newsroom. He is planning to move to Central Oregon where he can pursue his passion for fly fishing.
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