Jessica Savitch

Jessica married Mel Korn, an advertising executive on January 6, 1980. The marriage was short-lived and ended in a divorce within a year.

In August 1981, she married Dr. Donald Rollie Payne, a gynecologist and obstetrician by profession. The marriage ended within a year following the suicide of Payne, who was suffering from problems related to substance abuse and depression.

Jessica had long-term romantic relationship with TV news reporter Ron Kershaw, who reportedly had physically abused her many times under the influence of drugs. She was also in a short-term relationship with CBS news journalist Ed Bradely.

Jessica Savitch was born on February 1, 1947 in Pennsylvania, US, to David Savitch, a clothing storeowner and Florence, a navy nurse. Jessica had a Jewish and Italian American lineage. She lost her father in 1959 when she was just 12.

She finished her schooling in Atlantic City and started working as a radio jockey at the local radio station WOND in New Jersey. She was the first woman disc jockey in her locality.

Savitch was an alumnus of Ithaca College, New York, and held a majors degree in communications. During the initial days in college, she was discouraged from pursuing a degree in communications because broadcast journalism was not considered an apt career choice for female candidates.

In 1969, Jessica started-off as an administrative assistant at the WCBS, the flagship news station of CBS Radio in New York City. She kept pursuing her dream job of television anchoring by sending recorded audio tapes to various television stations across the country. She became the first female reporter hired by KHOU-TV in Houston on the grounds of her professional ambition, speaking and copywriting skills.

In 1972, she signed a five-year contract with KYW-TV as a general assignment reporter and weekend anchor. Initially, she was restricted to only on-camera news reading and reporting given the unionized work culture at KYW-TV. She eventually gained popularity by joining Mort Crim and Vince Leonard to host the 11 pm news.

Her feature stories on television gained wide popularity given their unique content for the times and her personal touch the stories. Jessica became a celebrity of sorts in her state with women trying to imitate her hairstyle and her dressing sense.

In 1976, she caught the attention of NBC executives during a presidential campaign debate held in Philadelphia between President Gerald Ford and Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter. Her extempore performance to fill-up around 27 minutes of airtime owing to an audio line failure earned her a three-year contract as news correspondent and anchor in Washington D.C. with NBC.

In 1977, she joined ‘NBC News’ as a weekend news anchor and correspondent eventually becoming a popular face in weekend and short news broadcasting segments. While she was extremely talented at anchoring, she failed miserably at a reporting assignment from the US Senate due to lack of relevant exposure to the particular segment. As an anchor, she also played an imported role in covering 1980 Republican and Democratic national conventions.

Jessica spent her major years of work at NBC, where she became the second woman to host a weekend national news telecast eventually becoming the first woman anchor to host the weeknight ‘NBC Nightly News’.

By 1980s, she reached stardom, became popular public figure as a female news anchor in the category of weekend and short news update telecasting at NBC.

In 1982, Savitch published her autobiography titled ‘Anchorwoman’.