During the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, Tom Brokaw was one of the “Big Three” news anchors in the U.S along with Dan Rather at CBS News and Peter Jennings at ABC News. They all hosted flagship nightly news programs for over 20 years—22 for Brokaw. He was the anchor and managing editor of the NBC Nightly News since 1982 until his retirement in 2004.
Brokaw is the only person to host all three major NBC new programs: NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press, and The Today Show. He now works on documentaries and is also a Special Correspondent for NBC News. He has also written a number of books about American history and society in the 20th century.
Brooke Baldwin – $1.5m
Everyone has small beginnings and so it is with Brooke Baldwin. She began her career at a small station called WVIR-TV in Virginia but soon became the morning anchor at WOWK-TV. Later, she worked as a lead reporter for a station in Washington, D.C.
Baldwin joined CNN’s The Rick List in 2008, in which she later took Rick’s place when he was fired. She is currently hosting CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, which runs from 2 to 4 pm ET. Baldwin won a Silver World Medal for Best Investigative Report for her documentary entitled To Catch a Killer. She has also covered a lot of important events including President Obama’s second inauguration in 2013.
Leslie Stahl – $1.8m
Lesley Stahl has been connected with CBS since 1972 and is the correspondent for 60 Minutes since 1991. She began her TV broadcasting career at Boston’s Channel 5, WHDH-TV, as an on-air reporter and producer. Two years after joining CBS, she became a correspondent, and her name gained more attention after she covered Watergate. She then became the White House correspondent during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush.
Stahl hosted Face the Nation between September 1983 and May 1991. She also anchored 48 Hours Investigates from 2002 to 2004. She is an author of two books, Reporting Live and Becoming Grandma: The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting.
Charissa Thompson – $500k
Charissa Thompson always wanted to be a broadcaster, and she wasted no time learning the ropes. She has worked on different networks including ESPN, GSN, Versus, and The Big Ten Network. She co-hosted Sports Nation with Marcellus Willey and was the host of Fox Sports Live on the new Fox Sports 1 on August 2013. Thompson also hosted Ultimate Beastmaster and was part of Top Rank’s broadcasting team for the pay-per-view event of Manny Pacquiao vs. Jessie Vargas.
In 2014 until 2017, she joined Tracy Edmonds and Mario Lopez as a co-host on the entertainment news show Extra. She then went back to Fox Sports and is now the host of Fox Sports NFL Kickoff Show.
Cari Champion – $1m
Cari Champion has made a name through tennis, not by playing the sport, but through reporting about tennis. She earned a degree in English with a minor in Mass Communications at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). While there, she wrote for the Daily Bruin. She then moved to West Virginia for her first job as a reporter. Eventually, she moved to Florida to cover human-interest stories.
While working in Florida, she discovered that she had a passion for tennis, especially after she covered Serena and Venus Williams. Champion was then hired to be an anchor and reporter for the Tennis Channel in 2009, and later on, she became an anchor for ESPN’s Sports Center.