May 6, 2004

Hometown girl makes the news
Homecoming is bittersweet as Cara Liu covers the Pat Tillman memorial for Phoenix CBS affiliate

By Kymberli W. Brady
Staff Writer

In 1992, Almaden’s Cara Liu accepted her diploma, slid her tassel to the other side and said farewell to Leland High School, setting forth on her quest to pursue a career in broadcast journalism.

Liu is one of many Leland graduates who head south each fall—spending their next several years on the UCLA campus brightening their educational horizons and following chosen career paths. “It was an awesome place to go to school,” she remembers. “A huge campus with so many different opportunities.”

Her dream of becoming a journalist started during her senior year at Leland, where much of her spare time was spent interning for KRON in San Francisco. Liu admits that her position in the community relations department encompassed everything from getting coffee to opening mail and writing public service announcements, but she delighted in having the opportunity to “shadow others” doing their jobs.

While at UCLA, there were many more internships, but the one that cemented her interest in broadcast journalism found her spending a summer working at the Washington bureau of CBS for “Face the Nation.” “It was just fabulous,” she says. “I loved living in a completely different city where I didn’t know anybody. I think everyone should spend a year abroad or in another city to get the experience.”

After receiving a bachelors degree in communications, Liu took her first position as a reporter in Palm Springs, Calif. before moving to KTNV in Las Vegas, Nev., where she worked as a news reporter, fill-in anchor and host of “Monday Night Quarterback.” For the past three years, she has served as a field reporter for CBS 5 News in Phoenix, Ariz.

During her budding career, Liu has interviewed notable personalities such as Bob Hope, former President Gerald Ford, Colin Powell, and Steve Wynn. She has also been credited with jumping out of an airplane to get a story on skydiving.

On Monday, Liu found herself returning home—only this time, it was with a television crew in tow as they made the journey from Phoenix—to cover Pat Tillman’s memorial service. Although she didn’t know him personally, it was under bittersweet circumstances.

“It’s an incredibly sad occasion to have to come home for,” she admits. “But I’m glad that I was the one chosen to do it. I obviously know the community far better than anybody else I work with. Something like this is so hard for everyone, and that includes journalists, especially when you have ties to the community. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.”

In speaking with Liu, it became evident that a good reporter needs to find the delicate balance between getting the story and breaking through the somber silence that, in this case, continues to grip a family and a community.

“We talked to some of the neighbors and a lot of them chose to respect the family’s privacy, which we chose to do as well,” she says. “We didn’t make an attempt to contact the family directly out of respect for their wishes.”

As for her roots, Liu fondly remembers Almaden as a sleepy bedroom community, but says as a teenager, there was never enough going on—something she wouldn’t value until later. “You appreciate it more after you leave and you’re able to come back and see it from a different perspective,” she admits. “Since I’ve come back, I really appreciate what a wonderful place it is to raise a family and grow up as a child.”

Among those holding special places in her heart are two teachers, Mr. Wright and Mr. Carlson, who taught social studies and English at Leland. “They were both wonderful teachers in very different ways,” she explains. “Some teachers have this ability to expand your horizons so much more than just the subject material.”

When asked if she plans to return home someday, she admits her ambition is to move back to the Bay area at some point, but says, “In my line of work, you have to be a lot more flexible with things like that.”