Leland Vittert

Leland Vittert

Leland Vittert is the Emmy-nominated anchor of America’s News Headquarters on Fox News Channel (FNC).^[1][2][3][4] He joined the network in 2010 as a foreign correspondent based in Jerusalem.^[1][5][6][7]

In addition to his weekend anchor and reporting duties, Vittert fills in for hosts on Fox and Friends, America’s Newsroom, and Happening Now.^{[1][8][9][10][11]}

Experience

Vittert’s coverage of the Freddie Gray riots in Baltimore was praised by many.^{[12][13][14][15]} According to Mediaite, Vittert “made his mark…by standing among protesters, facing a silent line of riot police, while interviewing residents and demonstrators affected by the story in various ways. He [broke] news about the Baltimore mayor’s alleged stand-down orders for police, and [had] tense question-and-answer exchanges with lawmakers and public figures throughout the city.”^[12][16][15]

Leland Vittert in 2011

Arriving in the Middle East in 2010, Vittert began following the Arab Spring.^[5] In 2011, he was one of the few reporters live on the ground in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on the night that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak left power.^[5] Vittert subsequently traveled to Libya during the first days of the country's revolution, where he reported on Muammar Gadaffi's counterattack and later from the besieged city of Misurata.^[17][18]

Vittert covered Operation Pillar of Cloud, the 2012 war between Israel and Hamas.^[19][20][21] He has interviewed Muhammad al-Zawahiri, the brother of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, and a failed Palestinian suicide bomber.^[22][23][21]

Before coming to Washington, D.C. in 2014, Vittert spent a month in eastern Ukraine as Russian-backed militias took over parts of the country.^[24][25]

Background

Vittert is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.^[1][2] He also studied at the London School of Economics.^[1][2]

Prior to joining FNC, Vittert anchored the weekend news at KDVR-TV (FOX 31) in Denver, Colorado and was a reporter for WFTV-TV (ABC 9) in Orlando, Florida. He also worked at other national news stations, including KATV-TV (ABC 7) in Little Rock, Arkansas; KNWA-TV (NBC 50) in Fayetteville, Arkansas; and WMTV-TV (NBC 15) in Madison, Wisconsin.^[1]

As a young reporter, Vittert received an Emmy nomination for clearing a police officer wrongly accused of rape.^[1][6]

Personal life

Described as “dapper and well-spoken,” Vittert won Westword’s “Best Hair on a TV Anchor Award” in 2007.^[2][7] His sister, Liberty Vittert, is a television chef, specialising in the cuisine of the United States of America, particularly on her show, Liberty's Great American Cookbook. She is also a professor of mathematics and applied statistics at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.^[26][27][28]

References