Tamron Hall
Age: 54
Birthplace: Luling, Texas, U.S.
Tamron Hall (born September 16, 1970 in Luling, Texas) is a national correspondent for NBC News. She is a day-side anchor for MSNBC and host of the program MSNBC Live with Tamron Hall. Hall is also a co-anchor of Today's Take, the third hour of Today. She also often substitutes as an anchor for the Orange Room co-anchor and news on Today. She currently hosts "Deadline: Crime" on Investigation Discovery channel.
Early career
Hall received her Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Journalism from Temple University. She quickly moved to KTVT in Fort Worth, Texas. From 1997 to 2007, she worked for WFLD-TV in Chicago, Illinois. As a former Chicago resident, she frequently reported on issues related to Chicago politics. At WFLD, she held several positions which include general assignment reporter, consumer reporter and she was the host of the three-hour segment "Fox News in the Morning". Tamron covered many breaking news stories at WFLD including one of the most devastating accidents involving Amtrak in Illinois.
She also landed a one-on-one interview with Barack Obama before he announced his run for presidency in 2008. Hall joined national news network MSNBC in 2007.
2009-present
At MSNBC, Hall served as a general reporter and fill-in anchor, first achieving prominence as a substitute anchor for Keith Olbermann on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Hall then joined David Shuster as co-host of a two-hour program, The Big Picture, which premiered June 1, 2009, and concluded January 29, 2010.Hall anchored as a substitute for Natalie Morales and also anchored on the weekends.
Since 2010, Hall is the host of NewsNation with Tamron Hall. News Nation launched in 2010, and includes high-profile interviews and coverage of U.S., global and entertainment news. This segment airs weekdays from 2-3 p.m ET. News Nation has covered many important American events including a live television broadcast from Ground Zero in New York City after the death of Osama Bin Laden was declared. This segment also covered the final space shuttle launch in 2011 and also Hurricane Isaac in 2012. On her show, Tamron tries to encourage viewers to express their own opinions through Facebook and Twitter on prominent controversial news stories.
As of February 24, 2014, Hall is a co-anchor of Today's Take the show's third hour with Natalie Morales, Al Roker and Willie Geist. On the March 20, 2015 Today show episode, Hall mentioned that she has often checked into hotels under the pseudonym DJ Warm Cookies. Hall is the first African American woman to co-anchor the Today show. On the day she signed the deal, she wore the jacket of American singer and civil rights activist Lena Horne, which she bought from her estate sale. Horne remains a primary inspiration to Hall.
It was announced in July 2013 that Hall would host another series, Deadline: Crime With Tamron Hall, on Investigation Discovery. It debuted on September 1, 2013. The weekly newsmagazine series features two crime occurrences per episode with Hall and her investigative team digging deeper to uncover details on why/how things happened within each case. Tamron dedicates the series to her older sister, whose death was ruled a homicide in 2004, and remains unsolved. Hall's team is extremely diligent in their efforts, in and out of the studio, to retrieve information from as many reputable sources as possible in this one-hour program.
Anti-Domestic Violence Campaign
In 2004, Renate, Hall's sister was murdered, following bouts of domestic violence. Initially, officers informed Hall's family of their certainty of her attacker's identity. However, as of this writing, that person has not been brought to justice. During an interview at the Television Critics Association, Hall described the awful day when she received the call that her sister was found dead face down in her pool. She said there were many signals of domestic abuse that she realized at the time, but did not do anything to intervene, and she also partly blames herself for the loss of her sister.
Hall credited her personal experience with domestic violence for the drive to host Deadline: Crime. In a blog post published by Hall for The Today Show, she wrote about the struggles of talking about her sister and her unsolved murder. Initially, she was afraid to speak out, because she thought she "would be seen as exploiting the problem". She didn't decide to take action until very recently.
Through Today's "Shine A Light" campaign, Hall fights against domestic abuse. Shine A Light supports many worthy causes, including homelessness, hunger, and abuse. Her goal is to create a PSA for schools and camps that helps spread awareness of emotionally and physically abusive relationships in teens. Hall's fundraising efforts benefit Day One New York, Inc., which helps fight dating abuse. So far they have raised over $40,000.
Awards and Nominations
Tamron was nominated for an Emmy for her consumer report segment, "The Bottom Line," which first aired in 1999. Tamron served as reporter of the NBC News segment "The Inauguration of Barack Obama," which won an Emmy in October, 2010. Hall received the Lew Klein Alumni in the Media award from Temple University in 2010. She also had another Emmy nomination for her segment called "Education Nation: Teacher Town Hall" in 2011. Tamron has also been featured in several major news publications, including ones by Ebony Magazine, Forbes, Huffington Post, and several others.
Other appearances in media
- Hall was featured on a 2014 episode of Running Wild with Bear Grylls where she and Bear Grylls hiked for two days in the Pink Cliffs of southwestern Utah. They rappelled down several cliffs, cooked a squirrel over a fire and hiked over rugged terrain.