Lori Waldon is trading in easy access to Sacramento Kings games for a quick drive to Santa Fe and other wonders of northern New Mexico.
Waldon, presently Hearst Television‘s regional director of news and the longtime news director at the company’s Sacramento-based NBC affiliate KCRA-3 and MyNetworkTV-affiliated KQCA-TV, has been promoted to President/GM of KOAT-7, the ABC affiliate serving the Albuquerque-Santa Fe market.
While serving as Hearst Television’s regional director of news, Waldon’s supervisory portfolio encompassed KOAT’s news team as well as those of Hearst’s California stations, which include KSBW-8 in Monterey-Salinas.
With her new appointment, effective January 1, 2019, she succeeds Mary Lynn Roper, a New Mexico broadcasting icon who also rose through the journalism ranks of local television and transitioned to the GM role at KOAT after serving in corporate news leadership.
Waldon’s successor as KCRA/KQCA news director will be announced at a later date.
“Lori is an accomplished, award-winning journalist with an outstanding record of leadership,” said Hearst Television president Jordan Wertlieb. “Lori brings the experience, skills and reputation to build upon the exceptional work of Mary Lynn and the KOAT team.”
Waldon joined KCRA from WISN-TV, Hearst Television’s ABC affiliate in Milwaukee, where she was Wisconsin’s first African American news director and led that station to news-ratings leadership and a national Murrow for Best Newscast.
Before joining Hearst at WISN, Waldon was assistant news director at Sacramento-based KOVR-TV. Before that, she was managing editor at San Francisco-based CBS O&O KPIX-5.
