Uma Pemmaraju, an original Fox News anchor and pioneering Indian-American journalist, has died. She was 64.
The cause of her death was not immediately known, per the network.
Pemmaraju was on set when Fox News launched on October 7, 1996, first anchoringFox News NowandFox On Trends.
After departing for Bloomberg News, she returned to Fox in 2003 as a substitute anchor forThe Fox Reportand the Sunday edition ofFOX News Live, according to theNew York Post, and even once had a sit-down with the Dalai Lama.
When she was six-years-old, Pemmaraju’s family moved from Rajahmundry, India to San Antonio, Texas, and was the only Indian family in the city, according to a 1993 article inThe Boston Globe.
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Her father was a research scientist who specialized in birth control and had been asked to start a new foundation for population studies, per the newspaper, while her mother, a housewife, raised Uma and her two brothers as Americans with “Indian cultural values.”
Uma graduated from Trinity University with a degree in political science, and her first job in journalism was at theSan Antonio Express-News.
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At the time, theGlobereported that she “burst onto Boston’s media scene in 1984 like a rocket with booster jets blazing.”
Presley Ann/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
“Her family tells me she was a ‘noble soul and pioneer’ as an Indian Asian American news woman of prominence,” Wade wrote onTwitter.
Opening up to theGlobein 1993, Pemmaraju described herself as “a conduit to help other people.”
“I don’t want to sound too sentimental. But that’s what I’m about. I want to use my celebrity to help people, to help bring about something that needs to be done,” she said at the time.
source: people.com
