The Heartbreaking Death Of Fox News Anchor Uma Pemmaraju
Uma Pemmaraju, one of the founding Fox News anchors, died at the age of 64 on August 8, per Fox News. No cause of death has been publicly announced. She's survived by her daughter Kirina Alana Devi and her ex-husband Andrew Petkun, per The Focus.
Suzanne Scott, the CEO of Fox News Media, said in a statement, "We are deeply saddened by the death of Uma Pemmaraju. [...] Uma was an incredibly talented journalist as well as a warm and lovely person, best known for her kindness to everyone she worked with. We extend our heartfelt condolences to her entire family."
Pemmarju was born in India, and her family moved to San Antonio, Texas when she was 6 years old, according to The Boston Globe. Her interest in journalism started at a young age; she tracked world news she saw on TV in a personal diary, and her grandfather was a newspaper publisher, The Boston Globe notes. Pemmarju graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio with a degree in political science and government, according to her LinkedIn.
Uma Pemmaraju was an award-winning journalist
After graduating from Trinity, Uma Pemmaraju worked at a local Dallas news station and then moved to another station in Baltimore, where she won a local Emmy for her reporting of a child who nearly drowned, per The Boston Globe. Pemmarju went on to teach at Harvard University, the Institute of Politics, Kennedy School of Government Graduate Studies, and Boston's Emerson College Journalism School, her LinkedIn notes. She also worked for WBZ and CBS Boston, and she was named Boston's Best Anchor in 1996 and 1997, via AdWeek.
Pemmaraju moved to New York to join Fox News as an anchor when the network launched on October 7, 1996, at a time when there were few other Indian-American news anchors on a national network, Fox News notes. She started as the host of "Fox News Now" and she also anchored "The Fox Report."
She told The Boston Globe in 1993 what it was about her career as a reporter and newscaster that was most meaningful to her, saying, "I'm a conduit to help other people. I don't want to sound too sentimental. But that's what I'm about. I want to use my celebrity to help people, to help bring about something that needs to be done."