Jurnee Taylor
KTHV, Channel 11, is sticking with its “This Is Home” branding for its newscasts, welcoming Little Rock Central High graduate Jurnee Taylor back to her home city as a reporter and noon anchor.
A University of Memphis graduate, Taylor worked in the newsrooms at WMC-TV in Memphis and at KAIT in Jonesboro before going to work for Channel 11, Little Rock’s CBS affiliate, this month.
Taylor joins a number of central Arkansas natives reporting for the station, including Ashley Godwin, a graduate of Pulaski Academy and the University of Central Arkansas; Frederick Price, of Watson Chapel High and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and Brooke Buckner, Mount St. Mary’s Academy and Arkansas State University. There’s also another Central High graduate on the roster, evening anchor Craig O’Neill, who graduated in 1968, about 45 years before Taylor. Other native Arkansans on the newsroom staff include Tom Brannon, Karen Fuller, Skot Covert, Hayden Balgavy and Ashley King.
“THV’s strategy is simple — hire people who are passionate about seeing positive change in Arkansas and its communities,” station manager Marty Schack said in a statement. “We’ve found that oftentimes those who are deeply connected with the state are Arkansans themselves, so we love when we get a chance to hire someone reconnecting with their roots.”
In a news release, Taylor said she is excited to be back in her hometown, near family and friends, many who have already met her pet turtle.
News Director Shayla Teater, a North Little Rock High School graduate before going to the University of Missouri, said that even among team members from other states, Arkansas quickly becomes home.
Jessica Johnson Amis, the station’s director of marketing, put it this way: “We know through research that viewers find more trust in journalists when those journalists play active roles in their community,” she said in the release. “They want to know that local journalism is actually local, and that’s exactly what we have here.”
Taylor will be anchoring at noon, and reporting on the station’s morning news program, “Wake Up Central,” weekdays from 4:30 to 7.
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