When Craig Melvin joins Savannah Guthrie to co-anchor the TODAY show mid-January, he will embark on a journey and achieve a career milestone few journalists can say they have. After almost 14 years with NBC News, Melvin will lead its premiere morning show, the 7 and 8 a.m. hours.
TODAY announced Melvin will replace Hoda Kotb in January. Kotb’s last day is January 10, and Melvin will make his debut January 13.
Channel 11 anchor Jatara McGee spoke one-on-one with Melvin ahead of the transition.
“It’s the professional honor of a lifetime. You know, you’ve been in the business awhile. You start out in local news and you work at it, and you think well, maybe one day I’ll get to a bigger city, like Pittsburgh, or for me, it was Washington, DC,” Melvin said. “I got here in 2011 - a kid from Columbia, South Carolina, started at 30 Rock. I was fully prepared and perfectly happy with what I was doing being all that I ever did professionally. It was -- it’s a retirement job.”
Melvin was raised in Columbia, South Carolina and also started his career there, working for the local NBC affiliate.
“When I started, I was making less than tuition at my college, which did not thrill my parents. I had to live at home for six to nine months. Couldn’t afford rent and even when I moved out, I was living in a place that my parents owned, my grandma’s old house,” Melvin said. “I wanted to give up many times… What I would tell a younger Craig is it pays off.”
Melvin got emotional talking about his roots. He said his parents were thrilled when he told them about the promotion.
“My mom was a school teacher. Dad was a mail clerk. My mother was the first in the family to go to college. You know, we didn’t grow up with a lot. And so the fact that my parents will every morning now be able to watch their kid on the TODAY show, it’s not lost on me. I’ll just say that,” he said through tears.
Melvin is married to sports broadcaster Lindsay Czarniak. The two have two children together, 10-year-old Delano and 8-year-old Sybil.
Czarniak’s family lives in Greensburg, and Melvin said they visit often.
“We’re out in Pittsburgh all the time,” he said.
When asked about his kids’ reaction to the news, Melvin started to laugh.
“Kids always have the best response. My 8-year-old daughter was like, ‘well dad, you’re already on the show every morning. Like, are you moving shows?’” he said. She also asked if her dad would have to wake up earlier or work weekends again.
“That was all she cared about. And my son, God bless him, he’s 10 years old, and I do this thing in my house where I tell my children that we can’t afford things, even though a lot of times we can. But I don’t want them to grow up to be entitled. And so one of my favorite lines with my son is like, ‘no, we can’t afford that pair of shoes. We can’t do that.’ So my son was like, ‘we can afford things now, can’t we?’ And I was like, ‘no, still can’t afford anything.’”
Melvin added that his wife was almost as emotional as he was. The two have been together since their stints in local news in Washington, D.C.
“She knows the journey that I’ve been on,” Melvin said. “You want me, the kid from Columbia? It was – I got emotional. Then I still get a little emotional now talking about it, because it’s an honor.”
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