NBC News’ Zinhle Essamuah has officially joined the “NBC News Daily” anchor team, and is leaning into the program’s goals to make news accessible in her first few months on the desk.
“[News] is not just for the elite, it should be for the person who doesn’t want to know the play-by-play of politics — it’s not just for the politicos — it’s for everyone,” Essamuah told TheWrap. “I’m big on making sure we’re keeping the show, which has already been this way, conversational and accessible for younger viewers and underrepresented communities, and that’s at the forefront of what I’m doing.”
Launched in September 2022, “NBC News Daily” airs on NBC broadcast stations daily and streams on NBC News NOW. With Essamuah anchoring alongside veteran host Kate Snow from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET, the show balances breaking news and consumer stories by including regular segments surrounding mental health and parenting as well as buzzy topics like the “Barbenheimer” craze and Instagram’s new social media platform Threads.
“There’s room for everything in our two-hour broadcasts,” Snow said. “It should be a conversation that covers everything you want to know in the middle of the afternoon, from medical news to culture news to breaking news.”
While Essamuah admits she’s always had her eyes on the network’s streaming branch, which she applauds for tackling digital and broadcast “in a way that just works,” the anchor certainly didn’t take the traditional local news pathway to the gig. Instead, she started behind the camera as a filmmaker, and describes her foray into journalism as a “love of story.”
“Centering people remains at the forefront of what I do even as an anchor,” Essamuah said. “We have two hours of television, and it’s not just what news is breaking today, but it’s about how is this news impacting everyday people. For me, it’s been super exciting to bring that long-form pedagogy to the short-form news space.”
In addition to staying on the pulse “of what people are actually talking about,” Essamuah’s previous reporting on Black material health and other issues plaguing underserved communities remains a passion, which she hopes will spur practical change.
Essamuah’s reporting has already made a splash in the industry, earning her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Emerging Journalist in the 44th Annual News and Documentary awards cycle.
Though Essamuah and Snow come from different backgrounds, Snow says their unique perspectives have enriched their coverage since Essamuah joined the show with a vast array of expertise on the table, including some overlaps of interest regarding the human condition.
“We span generations, but we share this ethos of telling stories that center people and their experience,” Essamuah said, recalling her “generous” collaboration that dates back to the first story they worked on together surrounding fentanyl.
First filling in for coverage together in summer 2022, before “NBC News Daily” launched, the pair immediately hit it off and share a deep admiration for each other’s reporting.
“There’s something intangible when you get paired together on TV,” Snow said. “You either have a great rapport and just know each other immediately or not, and we I think we sort of knew each other immediately [and] I hope it’s visible on TV.”
Essamuah also joins the rest of the “NBC News Daily” anchoring team alongside Morgan Radford and Vicky Nguyen, who co-host live on streaming from 12 noon to 2 p.m. ET, and welcomed Essamuah by going out for boba tea together. The diverse group of four women leading the program follows the path carved out by female journalists like Andrea Mitchell, Cynthia McFadden, Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters, according to Snow, who has been at NBC for 13 years after working for other news networks, including CNN and ABC.
“When I started out, it wasn’t always easy for women working their way in this field,” Snow said. “This just speaks to where we are, as an industry, and especially as a company, NBC has prioritized making sure we look like America on TV.”
“These are the best people for the job, and we just happen to also represent what America looks like today,” Essamuah added. “We have a lot of work as an industry to make sure that TV looks like the world we’re in, but ‘NBC News Daily’ is giving me hope that we’re getting closer every day.”
“NBC News Daily” airs on NBC broadcast stations daily and streams on NBC News NOW.
