Action News' new weathercaster
Melissa Magee is shadowing staff before going on the air.
Action News' new weathercaster
Michael Klein, Philly.com
Melissa Magee
WPVI has its new weekend weather anchor in-house.
Station insiders ID her as Melissa Magee, who was laid off in June from New York City's Fox5 station. She had worked for Accuweather for a couple of years. Magee is shadowing staff before going on the air at Action News.
Magee replaces Erica Grow, who just left after about three years.
Action News-ies seem excited about Magee, as she very well might be the station's first African American weather anchor.
Her Accuweather bio says she started her career at Beverly Hills High School, graduated UCLA (English/French major who studied abroad in Paris), and landed her first big job at the CBS affiliate in Scottsbluff, Neb. Next was a reporter/anchor job at the CBS/Fox affiliate in Bakersfield, Calif.
The bio says she decided to learn more about meteorology because the weekend shows, for which she was anchor, didn’t have a forecaster. She taught herself chroma-key -- the technology that allows an on-camera person to point to a weather map -- and started dissecting the National Weather Service's “discussions.” The bio says she was working on her meteorology degree through Mississippi State University.
In other 6ABC weather news, Adam Joseph seems to be the choice to replace the retiring Dave Roberts at 5/5:30.
Roberts' last day will be Dec. 11.
Comments (31)
Low class uneducated whites crying in their cheap beer. Boo Hoo!— Noname4me- I was watching the news last night and when Melissa came on and she was wearing that blue dress, oh my goodness, she is gorgeous and what a nice nice booty. Love the chocolate. All you haters do something else with your boring lives instead of hating.— jhill42
- She is a great addition to the station, She has a great resume and is just adding more. Shows that she has drive and in my opinion does a great job. I think this will just be a stepping stone to much bigger things for her.— BigMel
- melissa- great voice,look,soothing. erica always had a look like she's suckin on a lemon slice.— rrizzi
- Hello all of you Erica Grow commentors, did it ever cross your mind that Erica left on her own, possibly to persue other opportunities. You people are sooo in the negative, these news personalities are moving from station to station all of the time. I liked Erica, but she probably had a better opportunity.— diamond965
- For all you haters out there, Melissa is doing a damn good job. Minorities are becoming more and more competitive. I think we are doing a good job considering that our ancestors were legally not allowed to read or write. Karma is a you know what.— diamond965
- Erica Grow was really a good Meteorologist and seemed like a nice person. I saw her at the King of Prussia mall a few months ago and she was very sociable. I was hoping that Action News was going to move her to weeknights. I hope that Erica stays local. Action News is horrible. Now I won't watch at all.— Joseph DeSantis
its amazing how some of you losers are always harping about race. get a life. david murphy and karen rogers both did the weather while earning their stripes and that seemed to be fine. you talk about affirmative action when its really the whites crying every time they dont get the job and a black person does, so terrible. liberty you and johnstone need to get a life. she is a college graduate and earned the job just like you earned your on that trash truck.— omar8012- I don't see what the big deal is folks. Sounds like she has an impressive bio and is qualified to do the job. Let's see how she performs before we dig in on tired topics like race and affirmative action. I'm curous now, I want to see what she can do!— Philly405101
- Plese interview Erica. She had the talent, looks, personality et al that made her an appealing winner. We need to find out reason for her departure.— mick314
- Erica was fine and if they found someone more qualified to replace her that would be ok but how could someone who isn't even a meteorologist be more qualified?— mk1956
- Just watched the permalink video. You have to be kidding me, if she is experienced with chroma- key we are not watching the same video. Somebody tell her Old Bridge is not Asbury Park. It's that kind of "I don't know what I'm doing and I don't care" attitude that will be her undoing in this market. I agree with Scootch, Rob Guarino was the most reliable weatherman this town has seen in a real long time.— bigtbone
- GREAT......She is a looker and that is all you need to be a weather person....they ALL just read copy from the National Weather Service....and as we know they ALL hype snow and hurricanes and just look pretty the rest of the time....and she is that......— nuggett
Comment removed.- Welcome!!!! I will be watching Melissa.— cirick
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- affirmative action at its finest!— NJsux6569
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- I won't watch her either. They should have hired Rob Guarino.— scootch
- you got to be kidding me? does everything have to deal with race on this board? if there was a story about a kitten stuck in a drain some of you would some how slide race in that conversation. news flash people. "everything is not all about race!" if she got the job so what who really cares? some of you analyze things way too much. too many whites in top jobs are you serious? please people grow up a little bit and do something that matters in your life. but this might be the only thing you got going on so my mistake continue on and be ignorant and type away.— philly14
- She has to look good and read a teleprompter. That's all they care about.— The Truth Hurts
- I thought Eric Grow was the perpect weather person for WPVI. I agree this must be an affirmative action move to avoid being labled a stations that has too many "whites" in the top jobs. When can we get away from this an hire people and keep people based in qualifcations and not some government mandate.Heck we've come a long way from years ago...he have an African American president.— tatatoofiebiglips
- Some call it "affirmative action"- I call it "diversity."— StevenT
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Is that a weave?— Weezy452- Comment removed.
- With all the cost cutting measures, you'd think the stations would want to save themselves 500k/yr. or more on salary/benefits for these positions you could teach a chimp to do. Come to think of it, the same could be said of all news anchors.— afrdmd
- She's a reporter learning the details of the field. There are enough "experts" to feed her the data. From a salary standpoint, why pay her the big bucks until she's qualified, and why bring in someone else with the meteorology degree to report the news? I don't see a problem here. Good move, PVI!— CityIdiots
- awww...poor white people. no longer getting all the jobs they aren't qualified for...now they have to compete. waaaaaa— babiesmakinbabies
- Anyone can do weather. All you have to do is look at the forecast online or at the weather channel.— Leron
- so she has no meteorology degree and she is pursuing one via miss state long distance? what they can't find anyone with an actual meteorology degree? sounds like affirmative action to me.— give me liberty or death
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Michael Klein, the editor/producer of philly.com/Food, writes about the local restaurant scene in his Inquirer column "Table Talk." Have a question? Email it! See his Inquirer work here.
Reach Michael at mklein@philly.com.
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