NECN ANCHORS

JIM BRAUDE Jim Braude hosts Broadside: The News with Jim Braude, NECN's newest news and analysis show, weeknights on NECN. Braude has an earlier history with NECN as host of the station's Emmy Award-winning Talk of New England in the 1990's. By day, he is a radio talk-show host at 96.9FM with Margery Eagan of the Boston Herald. He started his career as a legal services lawyer in the South Bronx, and was the first president of the National Union of Legal Services. He was the executive director of TEAM (Tax Equity Alliance for Massachusetts), a tax reform group, from 1987 to 1996, and then served as a Cambridge City Councilor from 1999 to 2000. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and New York University’s Law School.

email: jbraude@necn.com

CHET CURTIS Chet Curtis is a primetime anchor at NECN. Chet Curtis co-anchors News Day Live from 4pm to 6pm weekdays and Business Day weeknights at 6:30pm. Before joining NECN in the spring of 2001, Curtis was as an anchor and reporter with WCVB-TV since its launch in 1972. For the majority of his time with WCVB, Curtis co-anchored the station's principal weekday newscasts, and was the original host of the station's award winning Chronicle program. Before coming to New England, Chet Curtis worked as an anchor and reporter at the CBS flagship station in New York City, and prior to that at the CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C., also as an anchor and reporter. He has three daughters, and currently resides in Quincy, Massachusetts. Curtis is an avid pilot and sailor.

email: ccurtis@necn.com

LESLIE GAYDOS

Leslie Gaydos is the anchor of Morning Report, weekdays at 9am, a regular anchor on New England Midday at noon, co-anchor of News Day Live at 4pm and 5pm and anchor of Worcester News Tonight. She is also a general assignment and investigative reporter. In October 2009, Gaydos and a team from NECN won a national Edward R. Murrow Award for "The Forgotten Fire," a half-hour documentary that she wrote and co-produced in 2008. The documentary shed light on the extensive code violations in a Massachusetts office building where five people were killed trying to escape a fire in 2000. The story also won a regional Associated Press Award for best documentary. In addition, "The Forgotten Fire" was credited with helping to pass stalled legislation in Massachusetts that closed a loophole in state sprinkler laws and regulations.

Gaydos also contributed to a collection of in-depth reports that won NECN the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Broadcast Journalism Award. She is a Gabriel Award winner, an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award winner, an Associated Press Award winner and was also honored by the American Women in Radio and Television with a Gracie Award.

Gaydos began her career in television as a reporter and anchor at WTRF-TV in Wheeling, West Virginia. She is a native of the Pittsburgh, PA area, and holds a degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. She and her husband live in the suburbs west of Boston and have three children.

KRISTY LEE Kristy Lee is the weekend evening anchor at NECN. Her career began in 1994 in Palm Springs, California where she worked as the weekend anchor/reporter at the ABC affilaite. A year later, she moved to Spokane, Washington also as weekend anchor/reporter, this time at the CBS affiliate. In 1997 she arrived in Boston to work at WHDH, eventually as weekday morning and noon anchor. She went by her maiden name, Kristy Kim. Four and a half years later, she took on the main anchor job at the CBS affiliate in Seattle, Washington. She returned to Boston in 2005. "Out of all my moves, and I've had many as you can see, this was the best. It's great to be home again with family and friends and working at a wonderful station like NECN." Kristy immigrated to America at age 7. She was born in Taegue, South Korea. Her parents named her Yun Kyong Kim, but when she became a US citizen, she got to name herself. "Why Kristy? Who knows, I was 12, but it eventually ended up working well for TV." Kristy has an undergraduate and graduate degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She lives in the suburbs with her husband, who is from Boston, and their two daughters.

MIKE NIKITAS Mike Nikitas anchored NECN's first newscast on March 2nd, 1992, and continues to anchor Good Morning Live weekday mornings on NECN. He has anchored NECN's live studio or field coverage of nearly every major news event since 1992: the O.J. Simpson, Nanny and Impeachment trials; New Hampshire presidential primaries, 9-11, the Democratic National Convention, three Patriot Super Bowl victories, the Red Sox World Series victories, and more. Mike also co-costs NECN's "This Week in Business" on Sundays with Paul Guzzi, President of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. Mike has produced documentaries on the sinking of the USS Indianapolis and novelist John Irving. He has written a story about his late father for the Boston Sunday Globe, "Last POW's of WWII First to See Hiroshima." His news career began in 1979, and he has worked on-air and in management at radio and TV stations in California, Colorado, Indiana, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He has been nominated three times for an Emmy as outstanding anchor in the Boston/New England region. He's a New Hampshire native, a UNH graduate, is married with four children, and has been involved in numerous community affairs, including ten years as a softball coach.

R.D. SAHL R.D. Sahl is a primetime anchor at NECN. He anchors Right Now with R.D. Sahl and co-hosts Business Day and the News at 9. His 35-year career in broadcast journalism has taken him to stories around the corner and around the world. Foreign assignments include: The former Soviet Union and the new Russia, Solidarity-era Poland, German unification, France, The Vatican, Japan, and Cuba. He’s covered national political conventions going back seven elections. Sahl first joined NECN in 1995 as host of NewsNight. He joined the network fulltime in 1997. He’s received several regional Emmy awards for reporting and anchoring. He is a member of the Silver Circle of NATAS, a recipient of the Yankee Quill Award, and the Boston University Kauff Award. Sahl holds a Journalism degree from the University of Colorado, and a Master’s degree in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

KAREN SWENSEN Karen Swensen came to NECN in February 2006 and co-anchors Good Morning Live with Mike Nikitas. Karen came to New England from New Orleans where she and her colleagues at WWL won the George Foster Peabody, duPont-Columbia and National Edward R. Murrow Awards for their continuous coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

At NECN, Karen wrote and produced a one-hour documentary called "Katrina: A Flood of Tears." It was a first-person account of the storm and its aftermath that revealed the personal loss, strength and resilience of the people of the Gulf South. It won a First Place Associated Press Award.

During her twelve years at WWL, Karen worked as an anchor and reporter, earning six Edward R. Murrow Regional Awards for investigative journalism, writing and feature reporting. She also earned two Emmy Awards, in addition to several Gracie, Gabriel and Associated Press Awards.

Karen graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors from Penn State with a degree in Political Science and was a Louisiana state finalist in the Rhodes Scholar competition. She has a Master's Degree in Journalism from Penn State.

Karen lives with her husband and daughter in a suburb north of Boston.

BETH SHELBURNE Beth Shelburne co-anchors News Day Live at 4:30pm and 5:30pm with Chet Curtis weekdays, co-anchors Business Day with RD Sahl and Chet Curtis, and the News at 9 each weeknight with RD Sahl. She is also the host of New England Dream House. Beth Shelburne joined NECN in May 2006 after anchoring and reporting for close to four years at KFMB, the CBS affiliate in San Diego, California. While there, Beth won an emmy award for her coverage of the devastating 2003 Cedar fire, the largest brushfire in California history. She also won a San Diego Press Club award for a feature she did on a self defense program for women called "Rape Escape."

Before working in San Diego, Beth was the main anchor at WFTX in Fort Myers, Florida. She was the only reporter from Southwest Florida to cover the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in New York, and won a prestigous Edward R. Murrow award for a series of reports she did called "New York Stories." Beth has previously worked as an anchor and reporter in Tupelo, Mississippi and Florence, Alabama; she was also a producer at WVTM in Birmingham, Alabama. Before starting her career in broadcast journalism, Beth lived and worked in New York City; she did an internship in the executive producer's office at "Late Show with David Letterman" and worked at Grey Advertising and MTV Networks. Beth graduated from Auburn University with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism. She was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. She lives in Boston with her husband and daughter.