Sandra Marth Hill (born February 2, 1946) is an American television journalist and Miss Washington; she is also a writer and commercial real estate broker.
Born Sandra Lee Marth in Centralia, Washington, she was raised on a farm there. Her father, John Marth, helped build the local Lutheran church. She was heavily involved with music and the church from an early age. She was smart and studious, graduating from Centralia High School near the top of her class. However, she was a self-proclaimed social outcast. That did not stop her from being crowned Miss Lewis County in 1965 and Miss Washington in 1966. [1] She attended the University of Washington in Seattle on scholarship, where she studied Spanish and joined Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. [2]
After college, Hill worked in human resources as an employment recruiter for Seattle First National Bank in Seattle, where she met Craig Hill, a junior banker at the time; the two married in 1969.
In the 1960s, women were virtually nonexistent in television news, with the exception of the occasional "weather girl." [3] Hill had intended on going into international relations. [2] By happenstance, Hill and her husband saw a newspaper advertisement looking for a women's editor on a local TV station. She applied and got the job three weeks later. [2]
Hill began her career on air in 1969, by hosting a midday interview and news show on KIRO, the CBS affiliate in Seattle. Soon she doubled as a "street" reporter for the evening edition of KIRO's Eyewitness News. [2] She earned a devoted following in the Pacific Northwest. During her tenure at KIRO, she won multiple local Emmy Awards for broadcasting; locals also still remember her for hosting the Big Money Movie in the afternoon.
Because of her success in Seattle, Hill was approached to co-anchor the Channel 2 News at CBS owned-and-operated KNXT (now KCBS-TV) in Los Angeles in 1974. [4] When she accepted that position, she became the first female anchor in Los Angeles, working alongside Jerry Dunphy, Bill Stout and Joseph Benti. [3] [5] [6] Unfortunately, due to poor results from a focus group, she and a number of her fellow anchors were dismissed from KNXT in 1976. [7] She immediately received an offer from the ABC owned-and-operated station KABC. [2]
Shortly after joining ABC, Hill was offered a national spot to join David Hartman as co-host of Good Morning America , where she debuted on April 25, 1977, as a replacement for Nancy Dussault. [4] The format of the show was primarily driven by studio interviews in New York City led by Hartman, however, Hill successfully sought out her own interviews to conduct in the field. [2] In 1980, Hill was replaced in the studio by Joan Lunden, but briefly stayed on GMA as a feature reporter; [8] she went on to work for ABC Sports and Wide World of Sports .
In 1982, Hill was asked by CBS to return to KNXT in Los Angeles as an anchor for the 4:30 p.m. edition of Channel 2 News. She would later succeed Connie Chung (who went to NBC News in 1983) on KNXT's 11:00 p.m. newscast. Her co-anchors during her second stint at KNXT included Ralph Story, Jess Marlow and John Schubeck. [9] However, in 1986, Hill was dismissed again by the station (which had changed its call letters to KCBS two years earlier), [7] to the disappointment of her fans. [10] Nevertheless, she returned as the co-host of The CBS Morning News later that year. [11] Hill also would replace Mariette Hartley during the final weeks of CBS' short-lived The Morning Program [12] In 1988, she started with Home on ABC. She also worked with the British government to create a travelog for Britain that eventually aired on PBS. In 1994, she made a cameo appearance playing a fictional version of herself in the opening minutes of the science fiction film Without Warning , which was formatted as a simulated news broadcast.
Along with her husband and son, Hill returned to their home state of Washington. She is a hobbyist author, but won the Literary Contest held by PNWA for her book, Dance While the Moon Shines. [13] The book is a tribute to her family, and their moonshining roots. Her husband and son continue to encourage Sandy to write her own story as one of the first women in television news.
Constance Yu-Hwa Chung is an American journalist who has been a news anchor and reporter for the U.S. television news networks ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC. Some of her more famous interview subjects include Claus von Bülow and U.S. representative Gary Condit, whom Chung interviewed first after the Chandra Levy disappearance, and basketball legend Magic Johnson after he went public about being HIV-positive. In 1993, she became the second woman to co-anchor a network newscast as part of CBS Evening News.
The Early Show is an American morning television show that aired on CBS from November 1, 1999 to January 7, 2012, replacing the original incarnation of CBS This Morning, and the ninth attempt at a morning news-talk program by the network since 1954. The program originally broadcast from the General Motors Building in New York City.
KIRO-TV is a television station in Seattle, Washington, United States, affiliated with CBS and Telemundo. Owned by Cox Media Group, the station maintains studios on Third Avenue in the Belltown section of Downtown Seattle, and its transmitter is located in the city's Queen Anne neighborhood, adjacent to the station's original studios.
KIRO is a commercial AM radio station in Seattle, Washington, owned by Salt Lake City–based Bonneville International. The station airs a sports radio format and is an ESPN Radio Network affiliate. The station's studios and offices are located on Eastlake Avenue in Seattle's Eastlake district.
KNBC is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Corona-licensed Telemundo outlet KVEA. The two stations share studios at the Brokaw News Center in the northwest corner of the Universal Studios Hollywood lot off Lankershim Boulevard in Universal City; KNBC's transmitter is located on Mount Wilson.
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.
Jerry Dunphy was an American television news anchor in the Los Angeles/Southern California media market. He was best known for his intro "From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, a good evening."
KABC-TV is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios in the Grand Central Business Centre of Glendale, and its transmitter is located on Mount Wilson.
Terry Murphy is a television host and correspondent, best known for her nine years (1989–1998) anchoring the tabloid show Hard Copy and, since 2003, reporting for the entertainment show Extra. Previously, she was a news anchor at WLS-TV in Chicago (1976–1980), and at KNXT/KCBS-TV (1980–1984) and KABC-TV (1984–1987), both in Los Angeles; she later returned to KCBS (1987–1989) before moving on to Hard Copy. Terry Murphy also worked for WJBK-TV (CBS) Detroit in the early 1970s. She appeared in a natural acting role as herself, on Married... with Children in the episode "Shoeway to Heaven" (1994).
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.
James Webster Hill is an American sportscaster and currently lead sports anchor and sports director at KCBS-TV. He is a former American football defensive back who played in the National Football League.
Myron Jess Marlow was an American journalist. He was best known for his work on television in Los Angeles, California, where he spent the bulk of his career.
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.
Ralph Story was an American television and radio personality. He was best known as the host of The $64,000 Challenge from 1956 to 1958, and as the writer and host of Ralph Story's Los Angeles from 1964 to 1970.
Ann Martin is a former journalist and a news anchor for the CBS owned-and-operated KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV television stations in Los Angeles, California.
Clete Roberts was an American broadcast journalist. He began his career in radio news, then transitioned to television, working for stations in California. In later years, he portrayed himself and fictional broadcast journalists in entertainment media, such as in 1970s episodes of the TV series M*A*S*H.
John Schubeck was an American television reporter and anchor, and one of the few to anchor newscasts on all three network owned-and-operated stations in one major market.
Tritia Toyota is a former Los Angeles television news anchor and a current adjunct assistant professor in anthropology, Asian American studies and the media at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Mário Machado was an American television and radio broadcaster and actor. He made television history when, in 1970, he became the first American of Chinese heritage to be an on-air television news reporter and anchor in Los Angeles and perhaps in the nation.
Joseph Benti is an American former television news correspondent for CBS News who also served as anchor of the CBS Morning News from 1966 until 1970. Based in Los Angeles for most of his career, Benti later worked as a local anchor for KABC-TV and KNXT before retiring from journalism.
Preceded by Nancy Dussault as David Hartman's co-host from 1975 to 1977 | Good Morning America co-host August 8, 1977–August 25, 1980 with David Hartman | Succeeded by Joan Lunden as co-host for David Hartman from 1980 to 1987 and with Charles Gibson from 1987 to 1997 |