Life and career
Savitch was born in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, about 35 miles from Philadelphia. She was the daughter of Florence (née Goldberger), a navy nurse, and David Savitch, who ran a clothing store. Her father and maternal grandfather were Jewish, and her maternal grandmother was Italian American and Catholic.[1] After her father died in 1959, her family moved to Margate, New Jersey (a suburb of Atlantic City). She attended Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, where she worked at the campus radio and TV stations and at WOND1400 a newstalk station in Linwood, NJ, WBBF, an AM outlet in Rochester. After graduating in the spring of 1968, Savitch worked at various radio and TV stations, including WCBS in New York and KHOU-TV in Houston. She then became a popular local television newscaster at KYW-TV, the former NBC affiliate (now CBS) in Philadelphia, and a Washington correspondent for NBC News. She also anchored Frontline on PBS. Her autobiography, Anchorwoman, was published in 1982.