Inspiring Latina Of The Week: The Weather Channel News Anchor Anaridis Rodriguez

When Anaridis Rodriguez moved from the Dominican Republic to the United States, she didn't speak English. Now, Rodriguez anchors one of the most-watched morning television shows, AMHQ: America's Morning Headquarters. 

After graduating from Rhode Island College with a degree in Communications and Spanish, Rodriguez continued her education at Emerson College, where she received her Master's Degree. She then worked as an anchor at a small station in Western Massachusetts -- that is, until Sam Champion and The Weather Channel saw her tapes and brought her onto the team. 

We chatted with the Domincana about her work, her inspirations, and her advice for aspiring journalists! Check it out:

Tell us about your new role on The Weather Channel.

The Weather Channel approached me in February. I was a journalist at that point in Western Massachusetts. I was an anchor over there, and they approached me with this idea that The Weather Channel wanted to start a morning show, and they wanted to have a news component. They wanted me to a part of it, so I am the news anchor for AMHQ: America's Morning Headquarters that airs weekdays from 7 to 10am on The Weather Channel. The show's center is weather -- it starts and ends with the weather -- but sprinkled in is a little bit of sports and a little bit of news. [It's] just to get people prepared for the day ahead so they don't get in the car and all of the sudden, they don't know what's happening until they turn on the radio. My segments are about two minutes long, and I come in every half hour just to give you a tidbit on the day's stories.

Do you cover all types of news or do you have a 'beat'?

All types of news! News from what everyone is talking about on social media to what type of meeting the President will be a part of on Capitol Hill or whether or not the energy committee is going to be talking about restructuring an electrical grid. Sometimes, they're anchored around the weather. Today, in fact, we had a story about a new study released in Canada about how pregnant women could go into labor if the city is experiencing a temperature of 90 degrees or above in a stretch of days -- it's about how heat waves affect women. The stories range from all types of different story lines.

How is it different from the other jobs you've had in journalism?

It's very diffierent in the sense that I'm not out on the street everyday, and I don't have a particular beat. In Massachusetts, I was covering one specific area, and it very geared around city politics or what was impacting that particular community. Here, we try to be a little bit more global in sense where we can target different areas of the country. Since we've live from 7 a.m. - 10 a.m., we can do that. So, at 7 a.m., we can be talking about something in the Northeast, and at 9 a.m., when we're live on the West Coast, I could be talking about something there.

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Cristina Arreola, Editorial Assistant


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