More than 30 years ago Annika Pergament drove up the coast, starting in Florida, in search of her first journalism job after graduate school—her trunk filled with tapes of herself as a news anchor. She landed a gig in television news just several hundred miles later.
“I hit every news station on the way. And by the time I got to South Carolina, I got a job,” she said.
It wasn’t the exact position she wanted, which would have been on the air, but it was a morning producer for the CBS affiliate in Florence and Myrtle Beach. And it wasn’t long until a reporter quit and she got a seat in front of the camera.
“I think the immediacy of television journalism just really appealed to me,” she said.
Pergament, who attended high school in Switzerland and grew up speaking Swedish and French, says her interest in journalism started with taking photos when she was an undergrad at Duke University, where she snapped a couple of shots for the school newspaper. A history major, Pergament took a job as a paralegal for the summer at a New York law firm before graduation and considered attending law school. But an attorney at the firm suggested she pursue a different career.
Pergament listened. After just about five months in South Carolina, She eventually landed a job in New York at NY1 — then owned by Time Warner Cable — in 1994. Her first day was Aug. 29.
“I know the date by heart because Aug. 30 is my birthday,” she said.
She started off covering state politics, dabbled in live trial coverage, for which she got to show off her legal knowledge, and then became the senior business anchor, regularly interviewing entrepreneurs, business owners and CEOs. Now, she hosts The Rush Hour — which airs weekdays on Spectrum News NY1 from 4 to 6 p.m. — interviewing some of New York’s most powerful players.
Pergament won an Emmy in 2022 for her segment “How Lower Manhattan Has Evolved Post 9/11,” which aired in 2021.
She has held a few local positions in New York over the years, including at WCBS, Court TV and at WPIX as a freelancer. During one of her many stints at NY1 — and in between her cameos playing herself on television series The Sopranos, Law & Order, Gossip Girl and Mr. Robot — Pergament took a continuing education program in business to help bolster her coverage of the industry. Her bosses soon moved her position from the newsroom down to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange — making NY1 the only local news station to be represented next to the iconic bell.
“It was a challenge, but it was definitely time for me to learn something new,” she said. “And that really sort of piqued my interest in covering business news.”
Her experience as a business reporter has dovetailed with her position as the host of The Rush Hour, which launched this past January. Spectrum has more than 32 million customers across its 41-state service area.
Some of Pergament’s favorite and most prominent guests have included Bill Rudin of Rudin Management, former interim New York City Transit President Sarah Feinberg and civil rights attorney Ron Kuby.
“I have a stable of people who I bring on who are experts at sort of distilling complicated information,” she said. “I always love to hear what these highly accomplished New Yorkers have to say and what they’re doing.”
Julianne Cuba , 2024-04-23 22:44:42
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