Perfect Alignment   

Popular Los Angeles television news anchor Laura Diaz joins KCBS and sister station KCAL after nearly 20 years at KABC.

Longtime KABC-TV lead anchor Laura Diaz says she has a bounce in her step she hasn't had in years as she moves from the top news ratings-grabber in Los Angeles to become the lead female anchor at No. 3 KCBS and sister station KCAL. "I know what it feels like to be No. 1," says Diaz, 46, who spent nearly 20 years with KABC. "I just wanted the chance to create something new." News Director Nancy Bauer Gonzales, who worked with Diaz at KSBY in San Luis Obispo, California, in the early '80s, says Diaz's popular brand of reporting and anchoring will help the stations even more than her connections to the Hispanic community, but "I don't think that any one person becomes a magic bullet for the network anymore." Both of Diaz's new stations are owned by CBS parent Viacom. Diaz will make appearances on CBS News' "48 hours" and "The Early Show." She says the change came at the right moment. "It's sort of like the planets lined up for me."