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Bill Hemmer (born William George Hemmer, on November 14, 1964 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American television news anchor. He is currently a co-host of America's Newsroom ^[1] on the Fox News Channel.

Biography

He is the son of William Hemmer, a mattress executive, and Georganne Knittle, a former high school teacher.^[2] A native of Cincinnati, he is the middle child and second son of the Hemmer's five children. He attended Our Lady of Victory Catholic parochial school ^[3] before graduating from Elder High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, and holds a B.A. in Mass Communications from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. While at Miami University, he studied in Europe at the Miami University Dolibois European Center and was a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity.^[4] He is a devout Catholic. ^[5], ^[6],^[7] He has returned to Cincinnati each year to host, with his family, the George Knittle Memorial Bayley Place Golf Classic in honor of his grandfather, which benefits Bayley Place Assisted Living.^[8],^[9]. In 2008, he also was the honorary chair of the Ohio River Valley chapter for the Arthritis walk. ^[10]

He is a supporter of IAVA (Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America). ^[11]

Early Career

While in college, Hemmer interned as a radio DJ at WOXY-FM and later moved to an internship at Cincinnati's CBS affiliate .He started out in backroom production at WLWT in the early 1980s, and soon after, went to WCPO to be the weekend sports anchor.^[12],^[13]. He took a year long hiatus from CBS to take a trip around the world with long time friend, Denny Young (Cincinnati Magazine, Aug. 2004).^[14] and wrote dispatches, submitted tapes and photos for both the local newspaper and CBS's local affiliate which were published under "Bill's Excellent Adventure." On his return from hiatus, he returned for two years to anchor locally before accepting a position at CNN's Atlanta office.

CNN

Hemmer spent ten years at CNN hosting a number of programs, including American Morning (originally with Paula Zahn, and later with Soledad O'Brien), CNN Tonight, CNN Early Edition, CNN Morning News, and CNN Live Today with co-anchor Daryn Kagan.

While at CNN, Hemmer reported live from Tallahassee, Florida for 37 straight days during the 2000 election recount. He reported from Ground Zero in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and, shortly after, traveled to Jerusalem to provide live coverage on tensions in the Middle East. In 2003, Hemmer traveled to Kuwait to report on escalating tensions in Iraq and remained on-site to cover Operation Iraqi Freedom when the war began. In 2004 he covered both the Democratic and Republican conventions and served as one of CNN's prime-time anchors on election night. He provided live coverage from Vatican City on the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005.

Fox News

He joined Fox News in August 2005, and has reported on a large number of stories both at the news desk and in the field. These have included the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, the 2006 Israel-Lebanon crisis, the Iraq War, and an interview with 2008 presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama (July 2008).^[15] He handled extensive coverage of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States in April 2008. He is one of the few reporters to have been embedded with U.S. Marines in Camp Fallujah, Iraq.

In October 2008, he traveled to Baghdad, Iraq to cover post-Iraq War troop surge of 2007 conditions. Included within this assignment were interviews with Gens. David Petraeus, Raymond Odierno, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

He was part of the coverage of the Massacre at Fort Hood in Nov. 2009

He covered the aftermath of the Jan. 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

References

External links

• Bio on FoxNews.com
• America's Newsroom on FoxNews.com
• Profile in New York magazine (2003)
• America's Election HQ on FoxNews.com
• Profile in CincyGentlemen.com (2008)
• TVGuide.com
• "Just Cause"