Robin Michelle Meade (born April 21, 1969) is the lead news anchor for HLN's morning show Morning Express with Robin Meade.

 

Background

The daughter of a minister, Meade grew up in New London, Ohio and graduated from New London High School. She attended Malone University and Ashland University, where she majored in radio/television production, programming and performance and minored in political science. She graduated in 1991 with a major in programming and performance. In 1992 she became Miss Ohio, and was a semi-finalist in the Miss America pageant. She married Tim Yeager on November 6, 1993.

 

Career

Meade began her career in broadcasting as a reporter at WMFD-TV in Mansfield, Ohio. She then worked as an anchor and reporter at WCMH-TV in Columbus, Ohio, and at WJW-TV in Cleveland. Later, she got a job as the morning news anchor of WSVN-TV's Today in Florida and also served as the station's noon anchor and health reporter.

 

She went on to work at NBC Chicago affiliate WMAQ-TV where she started anchoring the morning newscasts and then co-anchored the weekend newscasts and also served as a general assignment correspondent for the station. During her tenure with the NBC affiliate, she covered the 1996 Olympics, which included special reporting on the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.

 

She then joined HLN (then known as CNN Headline News), where she works now. Among many other stories, Meade anchored the network's coverage of Operation Enduring Freedom as well as that from Operation Iraqi Freedom in spring of 2003. She is based in CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta. Her first day on-air at HLN was September 11, 2001.

 

Meade hosts Morning Express with Robin Meade on HLN on weekday mornings, along with Ryan Smith, Bob Van Dillen, Jennifer Westhoven and Carlos Diaz.

 

She wrote a book titled, Morning Sunshine!: How to Radiate Confidence and Feel It Too. It was released on September 10, 2009. She has referred to it as a "non-fiction / motivational / inspirational / how-to / autobiographical book." It debuted at No. 12 on the "Advice, How-To, and Miscellaneous" section of the New York Times Best Seller list.

 

She is a host on the Oprah Winfrey Network show Ask Oprah's All Stars with Dr. Phil McGraw, Suze Orman and Dr. Mehmet Oz.

 

On June 21, 2011, Meade released a country music album titled Brand New Day. A single, "Dirty Laundry," was released to country radio.

 

Meade was featured on the cover of the January/February 2011 issue of Making Music magazine and in an article about her experiences with recreational music.

 

On July 7, 2012 in Daytona Beach, Florida, Robin Meade sang the "Star Spangled Banner" as part of the NASCAR Sprint Cup pre-race activities for the 2012 Coke Zero 400.

 

Awards

Meade won a regional Emmy Award for her efforts covering the 1995 collision between a school bus and a train in Fox River Grove, Illinois, that killed seven and injured more than 24 teenagers. She was nominated for a regional Emmy for her report on how to decrease chances of injury in survivable plane crashes.

 

In 2002, Meade was recognized by Lycos as one of the top 20 most popular television news personalities in the broadcast news industry.In 2004, she was voted "Sexiest Newscaster" by a Playboy.com online poll, with 40% of the vote (16,145 votes over a total of 40,380).

 

She won Ashland University's Young Alumnus Award for her achievements in broadcasting and served as the commencement speaker for the university's 2005 graduation ceremonies.