Alex Witt

Alexandra E. Witt was born on April 9, 1961 in Paris, France and is known as a popular American news anchor.

Background

Alex was born to very successful parents. She grew up in the posh neighborhood of Hancock Park, located in Los Angeles, California. Witt went to the prestigious Marlborough School for Girls in Los Angeles and then to the University of Southern California. She graduated from college where she was majoring in journalism and international relations.

News Anchor Career

Witt currently hosts the MSNBC show Weekends with Alex Witt on Saturdays and Sundays. She started her career in journalism as a field producer for the Today Show in Burbank, California. Her first on-air job was with the KCBA news station located in Salinas, California. She then went on to work for major stations like KCBS-TV, KNBC-TV and KABC-TV.

From 1990 to 1992, she worked for KCBA. From 1996 to 1998, she worked for MNYM-TV in the role of a reporter. In January 1999, she joined MSNBC and since then she has worked as an anchor for Weekends with Alex Witt and also as a contributing anchor for MSNBC Live. She has hosted across daytime and primetime platforms and also reported from the field during presidential elections and overseas.

Witt happily contributes to popular programs like Making a Difference, NBC Nightly News and Today. She broadcasted from the World Trade Center in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. She continues to report on terrorism in the Middle East and war conditions in countries like Iraq. In November 2008, she co-hosted the television series Daily Café on Retirement Living TV along with former congressman and actor Fred Grandy.

She is passionate on social issues such as education, equality for women and gun control. On the shows she hosts, she welcomes open and healthy discussions about these topics.

Personal Life

Witt married television producer Bill Sorensen and the couple has two children together, Caroline and Charlie. Rumors of her alleged affair with a co-worker placed the marriage under a lot of strain and stress. There were also rumors of an impending divorce. However, her representatives shrugged off the divorce news and said the couple is happily married.

Witt went on air saying that she is related to George Washington. Her actual relationship to the first ever president is that she is a second cousin, seven generations removed through Bailey Washington, who is a cousin and contemporary of George Washington. She is a member of the National Society of Washington Family Descendants.

She is an avid sports enthusiast and loves to follows major basketball games and college football. Apart from her journalism work, Witt is interested in music and is a member of the band Mrs. Robinson.

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Controversies

Both Witt and her husband, Sorensen were embroiled in a much publicized and nasty controversy. She had borrowed $65 thousand from her best friend, Stephanie Jones. It was during the time Witt was in between renewing her contract with MSNBC and Sorensen was out of a job. Witt promised to pay back the money in installments but never did even after her contract was renewed for $200,000. Jones alleged that the couple, claiming to be in financial difficulties and could not afford to send their daughter on a school trip, purchased an expensive Porsche and the family went on a luxurious foreign vacation to Barcelona during that time. Jones filed a case in court, but the matter was settled out of court. The story gave Alex a lot of bad press because her character was show in a negative light. It was seen as a bad sign of negative behavior because she took advantage of a supposed friend.

Her friend was nice enough to lend her money in the time of need. Instead of paying her friend back with gratitude and thanks, she did the opposite thing and made herself look really bad. She spent the money on new car and a vacation which implied that she was never in financial bind in the first place. The media speculated that she most have been intentionally trying to offend her friend. Her friend must have done something to make Alex mad and in return she dragged her through a false request of borrowing money. It was money that she never intended to return and she was willing to go to court which eventually ended their friendship.

Alex was also involved in another controversy but this time it was on her newscast and involved a discussion with a senator. It made headlines because Alex displayed a little bit of bias. News reporters are expected to be objective most of the time. Sometimes, news anchors will give their opinion without any backlash but when Alex did it, it got attention because the issue was about gun control. Alex asked a senator named Joe Manchin what his opinion was on a suggested gun control bill, “How confident are you that this legislation will be passed after thorough reading and discussion with your colleagues in the Senate?”

The senator, Joe Manchin replied, “Tomorrow – Alex, tomorrow at 2:00, 2:30 or so, Pat Toomey and I will go to the floor of the Senate and we're going to start going through the bill and discussing it. We would encourage our colleagues to come down and join in with us. If you're thinking about it and you really want to know more, let's talk about it. Ask us a question, let’s go through the bill. That’s what we're going to do, and we're going to continue to do that. I think this is the type of a bill, Alex, the more people – if you're a law-abiding gun owner and someone says guess what, they’re going to start registering and making sure they know where your guns are so they can come take them. That is a lie; that is a falsehood and a lie. We protect you stronger than anybody has ever protected you for those rights. And I'm hoping my friend Marco and others will take time to do that and who knows, maybe they’ll be supportive, too.”

After Joe finished his rant, Alex ended the interview by saying, “All right, well, Senator Joe Manchin. I don't often weigh in with my personal opinion, but I'm behind you 100%, good luck.”

Alex tried to brush off her final statement as being a rare move by her when she received negative feedback about her biasness. That angered people more because it wasn’t actually a rare move, she had often displayed her bias in the past during interviews.

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