Year-End Lists

News Ratings: Staff members of all-news station KFWB have ranked the Berlin Wall/crumbling of Communism the No. 1 news story of 1989. In the station’s new poll, News 98 staffers ranked the Bay Area earthquake, Chinese democracy movement and Exxon Valdez oil spill the second-through-fourth top stories of ’89. Tied for fifth place was the abortion debate, the Oliver North conviction and sentencing and the trial of Zsa Zsa Gabor. KFWB also voted an unofficial “Male Newsmaker of the Year” award to Mikhail Gorbachev, with Jim Bakker, Oliver North and Richard Ramirez tied for second place. Staffers deemed that the hands-down “Female Newsmaker of the Year” was Zsa Zsa Gabor.