Ashley Zavala

California Capitol Correspondent, KCRA News

This story is part of our July 2025 Young Professionals issue, photographed at Bradshaw Animal Shelter. To learn more about adopting at Bradshaw, click here.

A glimpse into Ashley Zavala’s future came in sixth grade. A naughty classmate threw an eraser, so the teacher made the entire class write a letter of apology. Young Zavala wrote a pointed five-page letter, instead telling the teacher how unfair the punishment was to the other well-behaved kids in class. Even then, she was fighting for fairness.

Zavala, the Capitol correspondent for KCRA-TV, is well known around the corridors of the state Capitol. You can even say she’s feared. The Capital Weekly dubbed her the “Oh, s**t” reporter because that’s what some lawmakers say when they see her coming. She’s earned that respect. Zavala asks the tough questions and demands answers. Just ask Assemblywoman Gail Pellerin, who was caught on camera as Zavala chased her down the hall in high heels after Pellerin refused to tell her why she voted no on a bill that would ban the use of non-disclosure agreements in the legislature. Or Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, who was highly offended when Zavala dared to ask her if it was a conflict of interest for Bonta to oversee the budget of her husband, state Attorney General Rob Bonta.

“That changed everything,” Zavala, 34, says over coffee at Camellia Coffee Roasters. “I need to really look at this in a new way, and maybe approach the legislature in a new way, if they’re going to be so arrogant to think that it’s silly of me to ask this.”

So where did that feistiness come from?

“I did have this energy. I think it’s something I’ve always had, going back to seeing things that I don’t find necessarily fair or things that should be questioned, and just calling it out.”

“My MO (modus operandi) is legitimately, just simply be a good journalist and explain what’s going on.”

Zavala’s dad, Alberto, was a flight attendant for Aeromexico. When he was laid off, he moved to the United States, where he met her mother at a diner in Philadelphia. Their marriage produced Ashley, but it didn’t last. They divorced two years later, and she grew up in two very different households. “My father, I only spoke to him in Spanish,” she says. Her mother, Jane Lyon, was a paralegal at the time, and Zavala watched as she decided to switch careers and become a doctor.

“That upbringing was huge for me, and being able to see hard work, being able to see my mom set a goal and accomplish it,” Zavala says.

Zavala began writing early, keeping a diary starting at age 5. In high school, she was the editor of the school newspaper and enjoyed covering sports. After high school, Zavala went to the University of Missouri after her grandfather, who was an announcer for the Green Bay Packers, told her the school had a great journalism program. She continued to cover sports at Mizzou, and when she entered a Nike contest for a sideline reporter, she caught the eye of a sports anchor at the local NBC affiliate who told her to try TV.

She became a multimedia journalist, shooting her own video and reporting and packaging football and basketball highlights. Then, when the Joplin, Missouri, EF5 tornado hit in 2011, destroying 4,000 homes and buildings, she was called to the news side.

She was eventually hired by the local CBS affiliate in Columbia, Missouri, where Julie Moravchik, the manager of the station, encouraged her. “She saw something I didn’t know. She told me I was born to do this job.” When former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens was forced to resign the office due to a campaign finance and sex scandal, Zavala was “catapulted” into politics. Nexstar Media Group, a growing company with 200 TV stations across the U.S., hired her to cover politics for seven stations at the California state Capitol in 2018. Four years later, KCRA wooed her away.

While at the Capitol, Zavala has been fighting for taxpayers and press freedom. Lawmakers have restricted space and access for reporters since the pandemic, and the state Senate doesn’t allow cameras in the hallway.

“Access is not easy here, and public records are really not easy,” she says.

When not pursuing a story, Zavala spends time with her husband, FOX40 meteorologist Adam Epstein, and their two huskies, Raja and Luna. Zavala enjoys yoga, paddle boarding and her book club. She’s president of the Sacramento Press Club and vice president of the Capitol Correspondents Association.

“My MO (modus operandi) is legitimately, just simply be a good journalist and explain what’s going on,” she says.

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