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September 8, 2020JASON McALISTER
November 25, 2020UNPRECEDENTED JOURNALISM
BY CHRISTINE MONTANTI
News 12 Long Island’s Morning Show Anchor, Elizabeth Hashagen, is known for captivating millions of viewers with her spirited and com-passionate style of unparalleled reporting. For two decades, the 13-time Emmy Awarding winning journalist has anchored coverage of breaking news and events including, September 11th from Ground Zero, the Missing Mastic Beach Mother, Vinessa Horta, and the ALS Ride for Life. Aside from the newscaster’s extensive list of talents, talk show host, TV presenter, journalist, reporter, and anchor, the mother of two is also a passionate certified fitness instructor teaching classes 6 days a week, uninterruptedly throughout the pandemic via zoom. Viewers can’t seem to get enough of the dedicated and cheerful TV personality and immediately feel connected to her as she delivers the latest headlines.
The native Long Islander first developed her passion for broadcast journalism at the age of 9 when she watched her father on TV at the scene of a helicopter crash. The aircraft plummeted into the Hudson River during a live rush-hour traffic report leaving both the pilot and WNBC traffic reporter, Jane Dornacker, trapped underwater. When Hashagen’s father, an FDNY 1 — underwater search and rescue diver, arrived on location, he dove 20 feet into the water and rescued the pilot who was strapped in his seatbelt, then Dornacker, who was floating inside the aircraft.
Hashagen was riveted watching the sensational news story on vari-ous local news stations. “I got to watch how all of these different journalists on different stations told the story of my father’s day. I watched how some people started with the sound bite of Jane Dor-nacker on the radio saying, “Hit the water, “hit the water,” as she was giving her live traffic report, and then some people started telling the news story with my dad and then others with lights and sirens. I remember it so well because it was captivating and interesting, but it all was so different, and they didn’t all say the exact same thing. I knew that I wanted to be there when stories happen, and I wanted to tell that story. At the time, I was in the 4th grade, and right away I had a mostly singular focus; from that point on, I knew that this is what I wanted to do!”
The journalist received her B.A. majoring in Communications and Journalism from SUNY at Courtland and studied abroad at the University of North London. She attended graduate school at New York Institute of Technology and studied their LI News Program. While attending NYIT, she did an internship with News 12 Long Is-land’s Morning Show with Carol Silva. Hashagen reveals, “I loved the energy and happiness of Carol Silva, and I felt like I wanted to end up on a morning show. There are people that you can look up to, but then there are people that reach down and pull you up, and that’s who Carol is. It really intrigued me to ultimately take the steps to be-come the morning show anchor because it is the best of my person-ality. I love having the conversations that I do with people during my 9 o’ clock show about the economy, stimulus plan, latest technology, education and medicine. I get to really spread my wings with all of the things that interest me and are affecting us on Long Island and become part of that conversation- you can find joy in that. It doesn’t have to be mean, miserable and awful. We can tell the story, which is a scary situation, showing that we can get through it, together col-lectively, to get better and end up on the other side of it. You can give the facts but you can still care. It gives me a greater connection to people behind the stories that I tell!”
Watch Elizabeth Hashagen weekdays on News 12 Long Island’s Morning Show from 5:00 AM–8:00 AM and 9:00–9:30 AM. Instagram: @elizabethnews12