Diane Willis

Diane Willis (née Bruhn)^[1] (born 1948)^[2] is an American journalist, documentalist, teacher and newscaster.

Career as a broadcaster

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Augustana College and earned master's degrees from the University of Chicago and University of Missouri, and spent six years teaching English and journalism before becoming a broadcast journalist. Her first job was at KTVI in St. Louis, Missouri, around 1981,^[3] where she reported and anchored. By 1983, she was headed to WNEV-TV in Boston, where she started as a reporter and soon became the main female anchor of that station alongside veteran reporter Tom Ellis, to lead the 6:00pm hour of news, by that time in a strong third place in the ratings. Despite that the newscast received good reviews from the critics during her tenure; she stepped down in 1986. She then taught Journalism at Northeastern University for a few semesters alongside her then-husband Jim Willis. Shortly after this, in late 1987 she joined WRTV in Indianapolis as the 6:00 and 11:00pm anchor with Clyde Lee. They will remain as the principal faces of the news division until 2001, when both agreed to resign and left the television news business. With Lee, she began a new consultant firm named Lee-Willis Communications, specializing in public relations, crisis communications and training corporate executives to deal with the media.^[2] This firm has a mild controversy when WRTV reported that its former anchors have received $30,000 from a high school to make public relations. Willis replied that they couldn't do any more for them.^[4]

Personal life

Willis married Jim Willis on the early 1980s. In 1983, she gave birth to her son, David. The couple divorced.^[5] Willis and Clyde Lee married in 2000.

References