Lee Ann Kim

Lee Ann Kim is a first-generation Korean American who was an anchor and general assignment reporter for KGTV Channel 10, the San Diego, California ABC television affiliate. She worked at KGTV from 1996 to 2008.

She is also the executive director of the San Diego Asian Film Festival, which she founded in 2000 with the Asian American Journalists Association of San Diego.

She has been married to Louis Song since 1997, with whom she has two sons.

Background

Lee Ann Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea and her family emigrated to Chicago in 1971 where she spent most of her childhood life with her three younger sisters, her mother, and her father, who is a doctor. She studied broadcast journalism with a minor in Spanish at the University of Maryland.

Inspired by a story she saw on former National Football League quarterback Dan Marino's own family, Lee Ann and her husband Louis Song planned to adopt a child while having a birth child of their own. They contacted Holt International adoption agency and were matched with a boy in March, 2005. However, when the agency was notified that Kim was to give birth in July, 2005, the agency put a stop to the adoption process and reassigned the boy to another family. This was devastating for Kim, who had already named the boy Samuel.

Her birth child, Weston Yongwon Song, was born on July 5, 2005.

Lee Ann and Louis Song continued to pursue adoption as soon as her first son was born. On June 16, 2006, they were introduced to 4 month old Samuel Hyungwon Song, her newly adopted son, at Los Angeles International Airport. Samuel was born in February, 2006.

Professional career

While a senior at the University of Maryland, she was a bureau reporter for four Washington D.C. area radio stations, covering Maryland state politics in Annapolis.

In 1993, she landed her first TV job at the nation's first all-news local broadcast station, KNWS in Houston, Texas. She went on to become the main anchor at the CBS station in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. In 1995, she then moved to Springfield, Missouri to work at KYTV, the local NBC afiliate, where she became the first person of color to anchor the news in the Ozarks. In 1996, she accepted an offer from KGTV to work in San Diego.

Since joining KGTV news, Kim has covered Santana and Granite Hills high school shootings, the search for Danielle Van Dam, the Heaven's Gate suicides, and the 1996 Republican National Convention.

In 2005, she was promoted to the 5:30 pm weekday anchor position. In 2006, she was named as co-host of the newly created hour-long 4:00 pm news program called 10-4 San Diego. In August 2008, Lee Ann was let go from the station as a cost-cutting measure. [Lee Ann Kim to Leave Channel 10 - San Diego Union-Tribune. http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080814/news_1c14leeann.html. Accessed August 31, 2008.]

She has received numerous awards for her work including an Emmy Award for investigative reporting, the California Teacher's Association award for best educational reporting for her coverage of bilingual education, and best news report by the California Chicano News Media Association, and two national Asian American Journalists Association awards for best reporting in Asian and non-Asian related issues.

References

External links

* [http://www.10news.com KGTV 10 News]
* [http://www.10news.com/10-4sandiego/index.html 10-4 San Diego]
* [http://www.10news.com/kgtvnewsteam/153216/detail.html KGTV 10 News bio]
* [http://www.xanga.com/newsdiva Xanga site]
* [http://www.sdaff.org San Diego Asian Film Foundation]
* [http://usatalent.tvjobs.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?Z=&action=search&individual=10 USA Talent at TVJobs.com]