WESH

The University of Central Florida, Orlando’s hometown university, has announced a new endowed journalism scholarship in the name of Wendy Chioji.

When Wendy Chioji died on October 7th, my Facebook feed was literally taken over by people who knew her and wanted to share their pictures and stories about her. Wendy was the news anchor and reporter at WESH, the Hearst NBC affiliate in Orlando, and that’s where our paths crossed. Family, friends, co-workers, other cancer survivors, people who climbed mountains with her and others who were inspired by her strength, her spirit and her composure, share their thoughts here about how Wendy made their lives brighter.

Easy to recognize with their call letters emblazoned on the sides and their dish on top, perhaps no other hardware involved in the news gathering process says TV news like the news van. So it makes sense to use TV station news vans as part of the marketing. Here are some examples.

For 354 days, Mackenzie Grant was a morning news producer for a TV station. Until the election of 2016. “The results deflated me in a way I wasn’t expecting. A Trump presidency meant fighting for an industry that would never fight for me.”

Travis Sherwin will move from being the news director at Hearst’s WPBF in West Palm to head up the company’s national investigative unit out of Washington, D.C. Sherwin said that while he enjoyed being a news director, “this is where my heart is, telling stories that are compelling and that people care about.”

The National Weather Association named Amy Sweezey its annual Broadcaster of the Year. “The award may represent one year but Amy puts in the effort to elevate broadcast meteorology and humanity all years,” said Alan Sealls, NWA president.

WESH and the American Red Cross of Central Florida are holding a disaster relief telethon today to raise funds to benefit all of those in the Florida panhandle impacted by Hurricane Michael. “We want to make sure the victims and families impacted by this disaster know they have the support of Central Florida in this time of healing and rebuilding,” said John R. Soapes, WESH’s general manager.