WPXI-TV hired New Kensington native Jatara McGee to be the station’s new weekend morning anchor beginning in mid-February. Current weekend morning anchor Alyssa Raymond will move to anchor the weekday noon newscast on Channel 11 after Katherine Amenta and Gordon Loesch took on an additional 7 a.m. weekday newscast on WPGH-TV earlier this month.
McGee, a 2011 Shady Side Academy grad, will also work as an investigative reporter for Channel 11 on weekdays. She most recently spent five years at WLWT-TV in Cincinnati and was in an investigative reporter role there beginning in 2021. Prior to that, McGee was a multimedia journalist at WSAZ-TV in Charleston, W.Va.
“I’ve been explaining to my mentors, wherever the best opportunity comes up, I’ll go, but I’ve always kept an eye on Pittsburgh and if a good opportunity opened up, you can’t help but jump at it,” McGee said Friday afternoon. “All the stars aligned for a great opportunity in my hometown at a station with people I really respect.”
McGee graduated from the University of Maryland in 2015 with a degree in broadcast journalism. She interned at WPXI in the programming department in the summer of 2013 and also had internships at WQED-TV, KDKA-TV and KDKA-AM/Y108/Star 100.7.