Newton Jones Burkett, III (born May 6, 1962), known as N.J. Burkett, is a correspondent for WABC-TV in New York City, the largest ABC television station in the United States. He joined the Eyewitness News team in July 1989 from WFSB-TV in Hartford, Connecticut, where he had been a correspondent since 1986.
Burkett grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, though he describes the choice to use the initials "N.J." as arising from the efforts of his agent and a station president to make him seem less "aristocratic" and not a tribute to his home state. [1] He graduated from Elizabeth High School with the class of 1980 and attended Columbia University. [2] He holds a BA in political science and a master's in international affairs, both from Columbia University. [3]
This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(October 2021) |
Burkett is best known for his coverage of the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001. He was located across from the plaza about a block away and was reporting when his camera operator, Marty Glembotzky, [4] recorded the first moments of the collapse of the South Tower. Upon realizing the building was collapsing, Burkett shouted to flee the scene and began running. Burkett and his camera operator recorded the aftermath of the collapse as dust and debris covered the area and documented as injured persons were treated by first responders. Burkett's camera operator also filmed the collapse of the North Tower 29 minutes later, after which they found shelter in an underground parking garage to avoid the toxic dust. [5]
For this reportage on 9/11, Burkett shared or was awarded outright many prestigious honors, including the George Foster Peabody Award, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, and the Emmy Award for Outstanding On-Camera Achievement from the New York Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
In June 2016, Burkett was elected First Vice Chairman of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences by the Academy's Board of Trustees, and served in that capacity until June 2018. He served on the Academy's Executive Committee from 2014 to 2018 and for two terms as President of the Academy's flagship chapter in New York from 2011 to 2015.
In May 2019, he was elected New York Chapter President for a third time by the chapter's Board of Governors.
In September 2019, Burkett was elected to the Board of Trustees of Newark Public Radio, the operator of WBGO-FM a not-for-profit jazz radio station in Newark, New Jersey.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorized by the United States Congress. The Port Authority oversees much of the regional transportation infrastructure, including bridges, tunnels, airports, and seaports, within the geographical jurisdiction of the Port of New York and New Jersey. This 1,500-square-mile (3,900 km2) port district is generally encompassed within a 25-mile (40 km) radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. The Port Authority is headquartered at 4 World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.
Elizabeth is a city in and the county seat of Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the city retained its ranking as the state's fourth-most-populous city behind neighboring Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson, with a population of 137,298, an increase of 12,329 (+9.9%) from the 2010 census count of 124,969, which in turn reflected an increase of 4,401 (3.7%) from the 120,568 counted in the 2000 census.
Newark Liberty International Airport is a major international airport serving the New York metropolitan area. The airport straddles the boundary between the cities of Newark in Essex County and Elizabeth in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Located approximately 4.5 miles (7.2 km) south of downtown Newark and 9 miles (14 km) west-southwest of Manhattan, it is a major gateway to destinations in Europe, South America, Asia, and Oceania. It is jointly owned by the two cities, and the airport itself is leased to its operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It is the second-busiest airport in the New York airport system behind John F. Kennedy International Airport and ahead of LaGuardia Airport.
The Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) is a 13.8-mile (22.2 km) rapid transit system in the northeastern New Jersey cities of Newark, Harrison, Jersey City, and Hoboken, as well as Lower and Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. PATH trains run around the clock year-round; four routes serving 13 stations operate during the daytime on weekdays, while two routes operate during weekends, late nights, and holidays. It crosses the Hudson River through cast iron tunnels that rest on a bed of silt on the river bottom. It operates as a deep-level subway in Manhattan and the Jersey City/Hoboken riverfront; from Grove Street in Jersey City to Newark, trains run in open cuts, at grade level, and on elevated track. In 2023, the system saw 55,109,100 rides, or about 185,600 per weekday in the second quarter of 2024, making it the fifth-busiest rapid transit system in the United States.
New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit or NJTransit and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey and portions of the states of New York and Pennsylvania. It operates buses, light rail, and commuter rail services throughout the state, connecting to major commercial and employment centers both within the state and in its two adjacent major cities, New York City and Philadelphia. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 209,259,800.
Newark Academy is a coeducational private day school located in Livingston, Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, serving students in sixth through twelfth grades.
Hoboken Terminal is a commuter-oriented intermodal passenger station in Hoboken, Hudson County, New Jersey. One of the New York metropolitan area's major transportation hubs, it is served by eight NJ Transit (NJT) commuter rail lines, an NJ Transit event shuttle to Meadowlands Sports Complex, one Metro-North Railroad line, various NJT buses and private bus lines, the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail, the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) rapid transit system, and NY Waterway-operated ferries.
WABC is a commercial radio station licensed to New York City, carrying a conservative talk radio format known as "Talkradio 77". Owned by John Catsimatidis' Red Apple Media, the station's studios are located in Red Apple Media headquarters on Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and its transmitter is in Lodi, New Jersey. Its 50,000-watt non-directional clear channel signal can be heard at night throughout much of the Eastern United States and Eastern Canada. It is the primary entry point for the Emergency Alert System in the New York metropolitan area and New Jersey. WABC simulcasts on WLIR-FM in Hampton Bays, New York, on eastern Long Island.
The New Jersey Network (NJN) was a network of public television and radio stations serving the U.S. state of New Jersey. NJN was a member of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) for television and the National Public Radio (NPR) for radio, broadcasting their programming as well as producing and broadcasting their own programming, mostly relating to issues in New Jersey. With studios in both Trenton and Newark, NJN's television network covered all of New Jersey, plus parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and Delaware. The radio network primarily served several areas of New Jersey that were not covered by Philadelphia and New York City public radio stations.
New York City has been called the media capital of the world. The media of New York City are internationally influential and include some of the most important newspapers, largest publishing houses, biggest record companies, and most prolific television studios in the world. It is a major global center for the book, magazine, music, newspaper, and television industries. The Pew Research Center report "One-in-five U.S. newsroom employees live in New York, Los Angeles or D.C." showcases 12 percent of all U.S. newsroom employees—reporters, editors, photographers, live in New York City while only 7 percent of the U.S. working-age population lives in New York City.
The Archdiocese of Newark is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church in northeastern New Jersey in the United States.
The Newark Evening News was an American newspaper published in Newark, New Jersey. As New Jersey's largest city, Newark played a major role in New Jersey's journalistic history. At its apex, The News was widely regarded as the newspaper of record in New Jersey. For much of its life it had the largest circulation of any New Jersey newspaper, and in 1963 was the 20th ranked national newspaper by evening circulation numbers. The Newark News has been digitized by the Newark Public Library and Advantage Archives.
Melinda Murphy is an executive producer for Expat Living, a lifestyle magazine in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Bernie Wagenblast is a transportation journalist, radio personality and voice-over artist. She is the founder and editor of the Transportation Communications Newsletter. The newsletter originated as a discussion group in June 1998, evolving into its current format shortly thereafter. She also edits The AASHTO Daily Transportation Update, published by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and hosts AASHTO's ETAP Podcast and the ITE Talks Transportation podcast for the Institute of Transportation Engineers.
Steve Adubato is an American television broadcaster, author and university lecturer. In the mid 1980s he was New Jersey's youngest state legislator in the New Jersey General Assembly at age 26. Adubato holds a doctorate from Rutgers University in the field of mass media and communication. He is the author of four books.
Shannon Paige Sohn is a television news reporter at WABC-TV Eyewitness News in New York City, where she became the first helicopter reporter to win a national Emmy Award.
The Suffrage Hikes of 1912 to 1914 brought attention to the issue of women's suffrage. Florence Gertrude de Fonblanque organised the first from Edinburgh to London. Within months Rosalie Gardiner Jones had organized the first American one which left from The Bronx to Albany, New York. The second hike was from New York City to Washington, D.C., and covered 230 miles in 17 days.
NJ PBS is a public television network serving the U.S. state of New Jersey. The network is owned by the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority (NJPBA), an agency of the New Jersey state government which owns the licenses for all but one of the PBS member stations licensed in the state. NJPBA outsources the network's operations to Public Media NJ, a wholly-owned subsidiary of New York City–based The WNET Group, the parent company of Newark, New Jersey–licensed WNET and Garden City, New York–licensed WLIW. In addition to PBS programming, NJ PBS airs shows distributed by American Public Television (APT); the network also produces and broadcasts its own programs, mostly related to issues in New Jersey. NJ PBS' operations are based in Englewood, New Jersey. Its anchor studio is located at Gateway Center in Newark. Master control and some internal operations are based at WNET's studios in the Worldwide Plaza complex in Midtown Manhattan.
The 33rd News & Documentary Emmy Awards were held on October 1, 2012, at Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, located in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Awards were presented in 42 categories, including Breaking News, Investigative Reporting, Outstanding Interview, and Best Documentary. In attendance were over 900 television and news media industry executives, news and documentary producers and journalists.
The 34th News & Documentary Emmy Awards were held on October 1, 2013, at Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, located in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Awards were presented in 42 categories, including Breaking News, Investigative Reporting, Outstanding Interview, and Best Documentary. In attendance were over 900 television and news media industry executives, news and documentary producers and journalists.