David Ono ABC7 By Patti Hirahara March 26 2015

David Ono is a Japanese American filmmaker and news anchor for

KABC-TV KABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains stud ...

Channel 7 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. He is the co-anchor for ABC7 Eyewitness News at 4 and 6 p.m. with Ellen Leyva. He also fills in for co-anchor Marc Brown at 5 and 11 P.M.

Early life

Born David Johnston in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

to a Japanese mother and a Caucasian father, Ono moved to the United States with his family at age one. Raised in

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , s ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, he attended the

University of North Texas The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public research university in Denton, Texas. It was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private teachers college in 1890 and was formally adopted by the state 11 years later."Denton Normal School," ...

. Ono stated that he had little contact with his Asian roots as his mother died young and he was raised in a community that was either Caucasian or Latino. Since moving to California he has embraced his biracial heritage and became involved in the

Asian American Journalists Association The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit educational and professional organization based in San Francisco, California with more than 1,500 members and 21 chapters across the United States and Asia. The current presi ...

. He adopted the last name Ono, his mother's maiden name, professionally during the early 1990s.

Career

Ono has also worked at

KOVR KOVR (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Stockton, California, United States, broadcasting the CBS network to the Sacramento area. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside CW affiliate K ...

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

KDBC-TV KDBC-TV (channel 4) is a television station in El Paso, Texas, United States, affiliated with CBS and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Fox affiliate KFOX-TV (channel 14). Both stations share studios on South Alto Mes ...

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the county seat, seat of El Paso County, Texas, El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau w ...

KOSA-TV KOSA-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Odessa, Texas, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Permian Basin area. It is owned by Gray Television alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KWWT (channel 30, also licensed to Ode ...

in Midland/Odessa, and

KXAS-TV KXAS-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Fort Worth, Texas, United States, broadcasting NBC programming to the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is owned-and-operated station, owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Televis ...

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

. Having joined ABC's Los Angeles O&O

in 1996, he has interviewed President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

and covered major international events, including the

Boston Marathon bombing The Boston Marathon bombing was a domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Two terrorists, brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs, w ...

, the

wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton The wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton took place on Friday, 29 April 2011 at Westminster Abbey in London, England. The groom was second in the line of succession to the British throne. The couple had been in a relationship since ...

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

, the

2010 Haiti earthquake A disaster, catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (department), Ouest department, a ...

and the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami. With Ono and sports anchor Rob Fukuzaki, ABC7 Eyewitness News is one of the few news programs in the country with two Asian American male anchors. Outside of broadcasting, Ono has produced several documentaries chronicling the

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

and immigrant experience, such as the

internment of Japanese Americans Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and

Phan Thi Kim Phuc Phan Thị Kim Phúc (; born April 6, 1963), referred to informally as the girl in the picture and the Napalm girl, is a South Vietnamese-born Canadian woman best known as the nine-year-old child depicted in the Pulitzer Prize–winning photog ...

, the "Napalm girl" from the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. He and Jeff MacIntyre created the documentary '' The Legacy of Heart Mountain'' about the Japanese internment camp

Heart Mountain Relocation Center The Heart Mountain War Relocation Center, named after nearby Heart Mountain and located midway between the northwest Wyoming towns of Cody and Powell, was one of ten concentration camps used for the internment of Japanese Americans evicted d ...

. In the documentary he personally interviewed a number of survivors, including the mother of judge

Lance Ito Lance Allan Ito (born August 2, 1950) is a retired American judge best known for presiding over the criminal trial for the O. J. Simpson murder case, held in the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1995. Early life and career Ito was born ...

Awards

Ono has won three Edward R. Murrow Awards and 16

Emmys The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

. In December 2015 he was honored by the Los Angeles chapter of the

Society of Professional Journalists The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, is the oldest organization representing journalists in the United States. It was established on April 17, 1909, at DePauw University,2009 SPJ Annual Report, letter ...

with the Distinguished Journalist Award. In 2022, Matsukawa received Japan's Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette for his work promoting understanding of Japan in the United States and for his work within Japanese American community.

References

External links

Official Profile
–

website {{DEFAULTSORT:Ono, David Living people American television journalists Television anchors from Los Angeles American writers of Japanese descent American male journalists American journalists of Asian descent University of North Texas alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 4th class Television anchors from Sacramento, California