(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Longtime Fox News anchor Uma Pemmaraju has died at age 64, Fox News reported.
Very sad to hear this news .. Uma’s office was just a few doors down from mine when I first started at Fox. She was kind and welcoming and always has a smile for everyone. Original Fox News Channel anchor #UmaPemmaraju dies at 64 | @FoxNews https://t.co/BqJu0GZrtU
— Laura Ingle NOT Ingraham (@lauraingle) August 10, 2022
Pemmaraju was one of the founding anchors at Fox News, which was launched in October 1996.
FOX News Media CEO Suzanne Scott acknowledged Pemmaraju’s passing, noting that she had been there from the start.
“We are deeply saddened by the death of Uma Pemmaraju, who was one of FOX News Channel’s founding anchors and was on the air the day we launched,” she said, continuing on to praise Pemmaraju’s kindness and professionalism.
“Uma was an incredibly talented journalist as well as a warm and lovely person, best known for her kindness to everyone she worked with,” Scott added. “We extend our heartfelt condolences to her entire family.”
She was the anchor of shows like FOX News Live, as well as The Fox Report, earning a reputation as one of the best news anchors in America.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a former Fox host and regular contributor, reacted to Pemmaraju’s passing on Twitter.
I was so sad to hear. @UmaPemmaraju was a beautiful person inside & out. Talented and kind. A cherished friend.
Original Fox News Channel anchor Uma Pemmaraju dies at 64 https://t.co/5HUt7GIPR3 #FoxNews— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) August 9, 2022
“I was so sad to hear,” Huckabee tweeted. “[Uma Pemmaraju] was a beautiful person inside & out. Talented and kind. A cherished friend.”
During her tenure with Fox, Pemmaraju became something of a trailblazer in the modern feminist and multicultural movements as conservatives sought to make inroads with more diverse audiences following the radical Left’s pivot to authoriarian movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter.
“I’m a conduit to help other people,” Pemmaraju told the Boston Globe in a famous 1993 interview, while working as a local news anchor in the Boston area.
“I don’t want to sound too sentimental, but that’s what I’m about,” she added. “I want to use my celebrity to help people, to help bring about something that needs to be done.”
She was praised in particular for being an Indian–American woman of prominence.
Aside from her career in front of the camera, Pemmaraju also spent time in the classroom, teaching journalism at Emerson College in Boston, and also at Harvard University.
