‘EXIT STAGE LEFT’
Debbie Cobb, longtime anchor, reporter with Action News Now, bids farewell in final broadcast
CHICO >> For nearly 40 years working in television news, viewers allowed anchor Debbie Cobb into their homes.
On Wednesday evening, Cobb, while holding back tears, closed her final broadcast. Cobb resigned from Action News Now after 38 years.
“I just want to gracefully exit stage left,” Cobb said. “I’ve done this a long time. It’s time to make room for somebody else.”
Cobb was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Sacramento since her father was based at McClellan Air Force
Base. She graduated from Del Campo High School.
“When I was a freshman in high school, I can remember telling my friends ‘I’m going to be a television reporter,’” Cobb
said. “I never thought that was going to be possible.”
She then took an internship with KCRA in Sacramento and that was where she “caught the bug.” Cobb enrolled at Chico State and graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism.
She’d get her foot in the door at KHSL as a volunteer helping out coverage on election night. What started as a helping hand in coverage turned into a career spanning three decades.
“Every day as a reporter was different,” Cobb said. “I loved going into my day knowing that I was going to be going somewhere new, meeting somebody new, learning something new.”
Her first beat was covering crime and courts, which was a good fit since she loved investigating.
“She was delightfully a hard charger. When she wanted to go after a story, she was a bulldog,” said Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey. “It was always fun sparring with her as she’s trying to get deeper into a story than we were comfortable with giving.”
Cobb said she enjoyed covering crime and following through when an arrest was made and covering the court case.
“(Covering courts) I could talk to the defense attorney and the prosecution,” Cobb said. “It gave you a chance to see both sides. There’s always two sides to every story. You just have to be fair, impartial and open-minded.”
Throughout her lengthy career as a reporter, Cobb said she always prided herself on being balanced and sharing both sides to every story.
“You have an opportunity to share what you see with your own eyes and ears,” Cobb said. “(Viewers) want to come home and know they can depend on you for a story to be fair. I took that to heart. That’s a big responsibility on a reporter.”
Anthony Watts, a former meteorologist at Action News Now, has known Cobb since 1987. Their desks were next to each other and at one point the two were locked in a prank war.
Watts recalled a prank he pulled where he disguised a shock box as a wrapped gift and left it on her desk. It would deliver a small but harmless shock, Watts said.
“We’re waiting for her to pick it up after the noon newscast. She looked at it and smiled,” Watts said. “Next thing we know, she’s taking the camera and heading to Oroville for a story. In that moment I realized how dedicated she was. She was going to save that (gift) for later because the job came first.”
Covering the Camp Fire was a story that Cobb will never forget.
“I really felt like I had a passion for what I was doing. I really put my heart into every story, especially with the Camp Fire. That was one of the hardest stories,” Cobb said. “We were talking to people who had the flames at their backs, people who lost everything they had … it was so emotional. They trusted you to tell their story. You’re trying to stay composed because you’re on camera.”
Television reporters often move on from the smaller markets like Chico to bigger cities in order to move up the ladder. But Cobb stayed.
She had an opportunity to take a job in Oakland but turned it down.
“I just decided that’s not where I wanted to be,” Cobb said. “I wanted to be where I could raise a family so I decided to stay.”
She took a brief 10-month hiatus away from the station to focus on raising her children. Then she was offered a chance to anchor on the weekends on a parttime basis. Her temporary role once again turned into a full return to television.
Cobb met her husband while working on assignment out in the field. Now, what should normally be a quick trip to the grocery store often stretches hours as folks from the community always want to stop and have a friendly chat with Cobb.
“Chico is family. It’s just so unbelievable the number of people you meet in this business,” Cobb said. “This community is like no other. It’s warm and inviting and friendly. Everybody knows everybody and I love that.”
Cobb’s son is now wrapping up high school while her daughter just finished her first year at Boise State. As far as her next chapter, it’s still undetermined. Right now, she said she’s ready to step away from a deadline-driven business.
“I want to live in the moment and not have that stress of deadlines. It takes a toll every day,” Cobb said.
“I want to be able to spend some time with my kids and my husband. I want to go somewhere and not have to feel like ‘I have to be back tomorrow.’”
As she reflected on her time at Action News Now, Cobb said she hopes that she made a difference in the young reporters’ lives. She’s also working on getting a second children’s book on the Camp Fire published.
Cobb covered the entire case of convicted murderer Steven Crittenden. Cobb covered the final case on April 16 when Crittenden wrote a letter confessing to the killings of William and Katherine Chiapella.
The day after Cobb’s story on Crittenden’s confession aired, Cobb turned in her resignation papers. The Crittenden case served as the official bookend to her career in journalism.
“I wanted to make sure the truth was told in that story,” Cobb said. “I felt like I owed it to the Chiapellas as a journalist to tell that story.”