Whit Johnson

Last updated
Whit Johnson
Born
Stephen Whitney Johnson

(1982-06-25) June 25, 1982 (age 41)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Nationality American
Alma mater San Francisco State University (B.A.)
Occupation Journalist
Television KSL-TV
KNDO
KNDU
CBS News (2009–2012)
KNBC (2012–2017)
ABC News (2018–present)
Spouse
Andrea Fujii
​
(m. 2007)​
Children2

Stephen Whitney "Whit" Johnson [1] (born June 25, 1982) is an American journalist and co-anchor of the weekend editions of Good Morning America , the anchor of the Saturday edition of ABC World News Tonight , and he is also fill-in and substitute anchor of Good Morning America, and ABC World News Tonight.

Contents

Early life

Johnson was born and raised in San Francisco, California. [2] He graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.A. degree in Television and Radio Broadcasting. [3] Johnson credits his stepfather, TV and radio host Dean Edell, with having introduced him to the world of broadcasting. [4]

Career

Johnson began his on-air career in 2005 with NBC affiliate KNDO/KNDU-TV in Yakima/Tri-Cities, Washington, as a reporter and evening weekend anchor. He next worked for Salt Lake City, Utah, NBC affiliate KSL-TV as a reporter and as an anchor on evening weekdays. [4]

Johnson joined CBS News as a Washington, D.C.-based network correspondent and fill-in anchor in 2009. While there, much of his coverage focused on the White House, on Capitol Hill and foreign policy issues. [5] [6] He reported on the death of Osama bin Laden and interviewed then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the course of her tour of the Middle East in 2011. [3] [4]

In 2012, Johnson joined KNBC in Los Angeles as an anchor and general-assignment reporter. In that role, he reported from Boston for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential run, covered the Asiana flight 214 crash landing at San Francisco International Airport, and reported on the Washington D.C. Navy Yard mass shootings. In June 2014, he joined Today in L.A. , as co-anchor alongside Daniella Guzman. [3] [4] He traveled to Sochi to cover the 2014 Winter Olympics and later to Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Summer Olympics. In Rio, he co-hosted a special report on the Opening Ceremony that won a Los Angeles Emmy. [3] [7]

ABC News announced Johnson had joined as a correspondent in March 2018. [8] In September of that same year, Johnson took over as a co-anchor of the weekend editions of Good Morning America. [9]

Johnson served as a lead correspondent for ABC News throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 2020 election cycle he covered election week from Arizona as well as the Democratic primaries. [3] On February 1, 2021, ABC announced that Johnson would become Saturday anchor of ABC World News Tonight , replacing the departing Tom Llamas, but that he would also continue to co-anchor Good Morning America on the weekends. [10]

Personal life

Johnson lives in the New York area with his wife (married on August 11, 2007), Andrea Fujii, an ABC News reporter, and their two daughters. [11]

In 2018, Johnson unwittingly found two of his father's brothers through a 23andMe DNA test. [12]

Related Research Articles

<i>ABC World News Tonight</i> American television news program

ABC World News Tonight is the flagship daily evening television news program of ABC News, the news division of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) television network in the United States. It is currently the most watched network newscast in the United States, with an average of 2 million more than its nearest rival, NBC Nightly News. Since 2014, the program's weekday broadcasts have been anchored by David Muir. As of February 6–7, 2021, Whit Johnson and Linsey Davis anchor the Saturday and Sunday editions of the newscast respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ABC News</span> News division of the American Broadcasting Company

ABC News is the news division of the American television network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ABC World News Tonight with David Muir; other programs include morning news-talk show Good Morning America, Nightline, Primetime, 20/20, and Sunday morning political affairs program This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. CBS News television programs include the CBS Evening News, CBS Mornings, news magazine programs CBS News Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, and 48 Hours, and Sunday morning political affairs program Face the Nation. CBS News Radio produces hourly newscasts for hundreds of radio stations, and also oversees CBS News podcasts like The Takeout Podcast. CBS News also operates CBS News 24/7, a 24-hour digital news network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Gibson</span> American broadcast television anchor and journalist (born 1943)

Charles deWolf Gibson is an American broadcast television anchor, journalist, and podcaster. Gibson was a host of Good Morning America from 1987 to 1998 and again from 1999 to 2006, and the anchor of World News with Charles Gibson from 2006 to 2009.

<i>Good Morning America</i> American morning news television show

Good Morning America is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. The Sunday edition was canceled in 1999; weekend editions returned on both Saturdays and Sundays on September 4, 2004. The weekday and Saturday programs airs from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. in all United States timezones. The Sunday editions are an hour long and are transmitted to ABC's stations live at 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time, although stations in some media markets air them at different times. Viewers in the Pacific Time Zone receive an updated feed with a specialized opening and updated live reports. A third hour of the weekday broadcast aired from 2007 to 2008, exclusively on ABC News Now.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diane Sawyer</span> American television broadcast journalist (born 1945)

Lila Diane Sawyer is an American television broadcast journalist known for anchoring major programs on two networks including ABC World News Tonight, Good Morning America, 20/20, and Primetime newsmagazine while at ABC News. During her tenure at CBS News, she hosted CBS Morning and was the first woman correspondent on 60 Minutes. Prior to her journalism career, she was a member of U.S. President Richard Nixon's White House staff and assisted in his post-presidency memoirs. Presently she works for ABC News producing documentaries and interview specials.

KCBS-TV, branded CBS Los Angeles, is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside independent outlet KCAL-TV. The two stations share studios at the Radford Studio Center on Radford Avenue in the Studio City section of Los Angeles; KCBS-TV's transmitter is located on the western side of Mount Wilson near Occidental Peak.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lara Spencer</span> American television journalist (born 1969)

Lara Christine Von Seelen is an American television journalist. She is best known for being the co-anchor for ABC's Good Morning America. She is also a correspondent for Nightline and ABC News. She was the host of the syndicated entertainment newsmagazine The Insider from 2004 to 2011 and was a regular contributor to CBS's The Early Show. She was the national correspondent for Good Morning America and spent several years as a lifestyle reporter for WABC-TV. She hosted Antiques Roadshow on PBS for the 2004 and 2005 seasons and Antiques Roadshow FYI, a spin-off of Antiques Roadshow, during 2005. She hosts the show Flea Market Flip on both HGTV and the Great American Country channel. In April 2018, she announced she would be only appearing on GMA three days a week to focus on her television producing.

Paul Moyer is an American journalist. He co-anchored the 5 PM and 11 PM weekday editions of KNBC-TV's Channel 4 News with Colleen Williams for a decade after earlier co-anchoring with Kelly Lange. Moyer has worked primarily in the two major television markets—New York and Los Angeles—in addition to briefly working on network newscasts. Moyer was Los Angeles' longest-running news anchor following the death of KTLA anchor Hal Fishman on August 7, 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josh Elliott</span> American television journalist

Josh Elliott is an American television journalist who most recently worked for CBS News. He has previously worked as the news anchor for ABC's Good Morning America, a sports anchor for NBC Sports and Today, and was a co-anchor for the live telecast of ESPN's morning edition of SportsCenter.

Harold Greene is a journalist and news anchor at KCAL 9 News and CBS 2 News in Los Angeles. Before joining the CBS duopoly, Greene had a television news career, mostly in Southern California.

Loutelious "T. J." Holmes Jr. is an American journalist and national television personality. Holmes first gained national prominence as an anchor and correspondent for CNN. He spent five years at the network anchoring CNN Saturday & Sunday Morning.

Good Morning America Weekend is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It is the Saturday and Sunday edition of Good Morning America, with the regular Monday through Friday edition currently being hosted by Robin Roberts, George Stephanopolous, Michael Strahan and ABC News chief meteorologist Ginger Zee.

Robert Mark Marciano is an American journalist and meteorologist who was employed by ABC News until April, 2024. Marciano provided forecasts for the weekend editions of Good Morning America, a position Ginger Zee vacated when she was chosen to succeed Sam Champion on the daily editions of GMA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sara Haines</span> American television host and journalist

Sara Hilary Haines is an American television host and journalist. She is known as one of the co-hosts of the ABC daytime talk shows The View and Strahan, Sara and Keke and the host of the game show The Chase. For her work on the first two series, she received Daytime Emmy Award nominations. She has also worked as a correspondent on Today, ABC News, and Good Morning America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bianna Golodryga</span> American journalist (born 1978)

Bianna Vitalievna Golodryga is a Moldovan-born American news anchor and journalist. She currently co-anchors with Zain Asher the CNN global news show, One World with Zain and Bianna, airing weekdays. She previously served as a senior global affairs analyst at CNN, and was previously the news and finance anchor at Yahoo! News. Golodryga was also previously co-anchor of the weekend edition of Good Morning America and a co-host of CBS This Morning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paula Faris</span> American television correspondent

Paula Faris is an American journalist and television correspondent, formerly of ABC News. She is known for her tenure as co-anchor of Good Morning America Weekend from 2014 to 2018 and as co-host of The View from 2015 to 2018. Prior to this, Faris co-anchored World News Now and America This Morning.

Cecilia Marcellina Vega is an American journalist and news correspondent for 60 Minutes. Prior to that she was the Chief White House Correspondent for ABC News. Vega also worked at the local news affiliate KGO-TV in San Francisco, where she was awarded an Emmy in 2010. The next year, she joined ABC News, first working as a Los Angeles-based correspondent. In 2015, she became the Saturday news anchor for ABC World News Tonight. Vega vacated the position to become the network's senior White House Correspondent, and also hosted Good Morning America.

<i>GMA3: What You Need to Know</i> US television series

GMA3: What You Need to Know is an American daytime news program broadcast by ABC. Anchored by Jennifer Ashton, DeMarco Morgan, and Eva Pilgrim, it is an afternoon spin-off of ABC's national morning show Good Morning America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linsey Davis</span> American journalist

Linsey Davis is an American broadcast journalist at ABC News, who currently anchors the Sunday edition of World News Tonight the network's weekday prime-time streaming program, ABC News Live Prime with Linsey Davis, and she is also a substitute anchor for Good Morning America, the weekday and Saturday edition of ABC World News Tonight.

References

  1. ↑ "Stephen Whitney Johnson, Born 06/25/1982 in California". californiabirthindex.org. Retrieved 2023-02-24.
  2. ↑ Johnson, Whit (February 3, 2024). "Video Lifelong 49ers fan and 'GMA' anchor gets a Super Bowl surprise". ABC News. Archived from the original on February 5, 2024. Retrieved 2024-06-10.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Whit Johnson Official Biography". ABC News . February 5, 2021. Retrieved May 9, 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Whit Johnson Joins NBC4 Southern California as Co-Anchor and General Assignment Reporter". Business Wire . August 3, 2012. Retrieved May 9, 2022.
  5. ↑ "Whit Johnson Joins CBS News Newspath". ViacomCBS Press Express. August 27, 2009. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
  6. ↑ "About Whit". whitjohnson.com. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
  7. ↑ "Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards 2017: Full Winners List". Variety . July 22, 2017. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  8. ↑ Petski, Denise (March 12, 2018). "ABC News Taps KNBC's Whit Johnson As NY-Based Correspondent". Deadline. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
  9. ↑ "Johnson, Whit" [@whitjohnson] (September 30, 2018). "First show in the books with new weekend team on @GMA!!" (Tweet). Retrieved May 10, 2022– via Twitter.
  10. ↑ Ted Johnson (February 1, 2021). "Linsey Davis, Whit Johnson To Anchor Weekend 'World News Tonight'". Deadline. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
  11. ↑ "Andrea Fujii". Santa Clara Magazine. October 30, 2012. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
  12. ↑ Johnson, Whit (July 13, 2018). "DNA test 'accidentally unlocks family mystery' for ABC News correspondent". ABC News . Retrieved January 27, 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.