Kathleen Sullivan (journalist)
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Kathleen Sullivan (born May 17, 1953 in Pasadena, California) is an Emmy Award-Winning[citation needed] American television journalist. Starting her career in local television, she rose quickly after being the first anchor hired by CNN.
Moving to ABC, she debuted "ABC News This Morning" with coanchor Steve Bell in 1982, substituted for cohost Joan Lunden on Good Morning America, anchored ABC World News Saturday, and started the first national network health program, "The Health Show".
Sullivan is a pioneer in the field of journalism and her career has been involved in nearly every area of broadcasting. She has been nominated for Emmys in news, sports and entertainment.
Sullivan became the first American woman to broadcast live from the Soviet Union when she went there to interview Russian cosmonauts for the Soviet Pre-Olympic festival. In 1980, along with 12 men and Ted Turner's money, she helped create the Cable News Network, also known as CNN.
For more than 10 years, Sullivan was a news anchor, working at CNN, ABC and CBS. In the 1980s she reported live from political conventions, summit meetings, state funerals and the Olympics. She broadcast live from Buckingham Palace to report the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and [[Diana, Princess of Wales|
After leaving CBS News, she was host of two syndicated health shows in the 1990s.
Her reporting on Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina won her and CBS an Emmy for Outstanding Live Coverage of a Breaking News Event.
In 1984 she became the first woman to anchor a telecast of the Olympics. She was an in-studio anchor for ABC during the Winter Games at Sarajevo and later that year the Los Angeles Summer Olympics. She also anchored the 1992 Barcelona Olympics for the NBC "Triplecast."
Sullivan was the only American journalist invited by President Reagan to a 1987 White House state dinner honoring Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and celebrating the end of the Cold War.
She has received an Emmy nomination for Best Sportscaster - a first for a woman - and received two Emmy nominations for her work as anchor of E! Entertainment's "E! News Daily," which she hosted after anchoring full-time coverage of the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
She has also worked in radio, doing weekly commentaries for ABC News and working in Los Angeles as a talk-show host on KABC and as a drive-time anchor for the all-news station KFWB.
In the mid-90s, Sullivan appeared in television and magazine ads as a spokesperson for Weight Watchers.
Sullivan currently sits on the SAMHSA {Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration} National Advisory Board, to which she was appointed in 2003 by the Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.
