Robin Roberts
-- Robin Roberts was named the news anchor for Good Morning America in April of 2002.
Roberts anchors the regular hourly newscasts for ABCNEWS' popular morning news program from the show's home base in New York's Times Square. Roberts will also continue to serve as an ABCNEWS correspondent, covering a wide variety of stories, and appear as a substitute co-anchor.
Roberts has been a contributor to Good Morning America since 1995 and has worked in broadcasting for more than 20 years. While her time has been split between duties at ESPN and ABCNEWS, the majority of her work since 2001 has been with Good Morning America and the news division. She also contributes to other ABCNEWS programs, including World News Tonight and 20/20, has served as substitute anchor for World News Tonight and as an occasional host of the ABC series Vanished.
Roberts has covered a broad range of stories for ABCNEWS and Good Morning America, including the practicality of sky marshals on airplanes; how the World Trade Center attacks affected the town of Rockville Center; the custody battle over 12-year-old Timmie Meldrum between two men claiming to be his father; and the gentrification of Harlem. Roberts has also reported on the debate over stem-cell research, Internet adoptions and former President Clinton's first day in Harlem. She has interviewed an impressive array of newsmakers, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, sports legends Shaquille O'Neal and Tiger Woods and movie stars Samuel L. Jackson and Penelope Cruz. Last year she jetted across the country for Good Morning America's innovative weeklong series, "The X-Treme Urban Challenge." She also covered President George W. Bush's inauguration and the Olympics in both Sydney and Salt Lake City for Good Morning America.
Roberts will remain a contributor to ESPN, where she has been one of the network's most versatile commentators whose assignments have included hosting SportsCenter, contributing to NFL PrimeTime from 1990-1994, and providing reports and interviews from the field. She joined ESPN in February 1990.
At ESPN Roberts worked as play-by-play commentator and host of the network's WNBA (Women's National Basketball Association) games and specials, from 1997-2000. She also anchored SportsCenter from major events like Wimbledon, and was the primary reporter for ESPN's coverage of the Winter and Summer Olympics. She served as host of ESPN's prime-time interview program, In the SportsLight, ESPN Classic's Vintage NBA, provided coverage of the men's NCAA Final Four, the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, and of LPGA events. She has also hosted ABC Sports' Wide World of Sports.
Beginning in 1988, Roberts worked as a sports reporter and anchor at WAGA-TV in Atlanta and was also a morning personality on WVEE-FM. Prior to working at WAGA, she served as a sports anchor and reporter for WSMV-TV in Nashville, Tenn. (1986-88), where she won the "Nashville Scene" Sportscaster of the Year Award in 1987. She also worked at WLOX-TV in Biloxi, Miss. (1984-86), and WDAM-TV in Hattiesburg, Miss. (1983-84), as a sports anchor and reporter.
In 1983, Roberts graduated cum laude from Southeastern Louisiana University with a bachelor of arts degree in communications. She was also a standout performer on the women's basketball team, ending her career as the school's third-all-time leading scorer (1,446 points) and rebounder (1,034).
The inaugural Robin Roberts Sports Journalism Scholarship, created by the Women's Institute on Sport and Education, was presented at the 1996 NCAA Women's Final Four. In February, 1996, Roberts received the annual Distinguished Achievement Award in Broadcasting from the University of Georgia's DiGamma Kappa, the nation's oldest professional broadcasting society. This year Ebony magazine named her "Outstanding Journalist" at its Outstanding Women in Marketing and Communications Awards. In 2001, she received a President's Award from the Women's Sports Foundation.
Previously, Roberts received the 1993 Excellence in Sports Journalism Award for Broadcast Media, given by the Northeastern University Center for the Study of Sport in Society and the School of Journalism. She was awarded the 1992 Women at Work Broadcast Journalism Award for her contributions to the image of working women on television and for expanding career options for women in broadcast journalism. In 1994, she was inducted in the Women's Institute on Sport and Education Foundation's Hall of Fame. Louisiana Public Broadcasting also named her a "Louisiana Legend" for her work.
Roberts, a Mississippi Gulf Coast native, was born Tuskegee, Ala. She currently resides in Manhattan.