Deborah Roberts: ABC News Correspondent
— -- An award-winning reporter and media veteran, Deborah Roberts is a highly respected news correspondent with a broad range of experience and expertise. Roberts reports consistently for ABC News’ 20/20, Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and Nightline.
Roberts joined the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 in June 1995. Since then she has also served as a substitute anchor on Good Morning America, World News Weekend, 20/20, as well as a co-host on The View.
She reported regularly on a wide variety of stories for the newsmagazine program and for World News with Diane Sawyer.
Roberts’ coverage at 20/20 has consistently produced extraordinary narratives such as an intimate profile of first lady Michelle Obama. She has also reported from Africa on the HIV/AIDS crisis and orphans, and the California wildfires.
She has been awarded multiple Emmy awards for her international and national coverage of world events, including her in-depth reporting on an Ethiopian-American woman’s journey back to her African village to discover her long lost mother, the inauguration of President Barack Obama, and for her work with ABC’s millennium coverage. In addition she won a Clarion Award for her coverage of abuse within the Amish community.
Roberts began her network career with NBC News in 1990 as a general assignment correspondent. She covered stories in the Atlanta and Miami bureaus of NBC News and later became a correspondent for “Dateline NBC,” from the program’s inception. She reported from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, and from the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, where she earned an Emmy nomination for her coverage.
Previously, Roberts was the bureau chief of WFTV-TV, the ABC affiliate in Orlando, Florida, from February 1987 to May 1990. She also served as the station’s field anchor for NASA and as a co-anchor of the weekend news.
Roberts began her career in 1982 at WTVM-TV in Columbus, Georgia, and subsequently worked at WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she was highly praised for her coverage of the state legislature.
A 1982 graduate of the University of Georgia, Roberts was awarded the 1992 University of Georgia Distinguished Alumnus Award, presented annually to recent graduates who have excelled rapidly in their professions. She also earned a Sports Emmy nomination for her coverage of the 1992 Olympics and was cited as top local female anchor by the Orlando Sentinel.
Roberts has been with ABC News for 20 years and resides in Manhattan with her husband, NBC weatherman Al Roker, and their two children.
