Lisa Sylvester was a 2019 Recipient of the “women of excellence” award
Pittsburgh’s only Black female weekday evening news anchor continues to kick butt and take names.
Not literally, of course.
But according to the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, she’s doing just that. The organization announced its 2023 award recipients on Saturday, Oct. 14, and Sylvester, the anchor for WPXI-TV (Channel 11), won the Regional Emmy for best news anchor.
Being a news anchor looks easy, but it’s not. Somehow, a person has to, no matter how they’re feeling personally, calmly and credibly deliver the news to viewers each night. Most times, the news is bad news — a shooting, a fire, a robbery, an assault. Other times, it’s lighthearted, such as an uplifting story on a dog that assists its owner who may be blind.
Then you get the breaking news, such as the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, or a multi-vehicle crash on the Fort Pitt Bridge.
A lot of times, anchors are reading news off a teleprompter. But what about all those times when Sylvester and others have to speak extemporaneously during an interview, or a back-and-forth with a reporter in the field, or when breaking news occurs and information must be relayed to the viewer ASAP?
Sylvester obviously has mastered this, according to the longstanding organization that dishes out TV’s highest honor, the Emmy Awards.
Sylvester came to WPXI in 2013 from CNN, where she had worked since 2004. According to the WPXI website, Sylvester served at CNN as a cut-in news anchor and correspondent for “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer, as well as a Washington-based correspondent for “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”
Sylvester also spent four years working at ABC, where she served as a Washington, D.C., general correspondent and a correspondent for the network’s Weekend News, according to WPXI’s website.
Prior to Sylvester being a national figure, she worked as a reporter for KTVI-TV in St. Louis and WMBD-TV in Peoria, Ill. She also served as a reporter for WKRN-TV in Nashville, Tenn., where in 1997, she won an Emmy and an Associated Press award for a report on “Tornado Survival.”
Sylvester earned a degree in international economics from Georgetown University and a master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Sylvester is no stranger to the New Pittsburgh Courier. She was honored as a Courier “Woman of Excellence” in 2019 and hosted the “Men of Excellence” awards in 2023.
