TV history made in Texas with first all-Black, all-women news anchor team

A local news station in Texas has hired news anchors who are all Black women. Jasmin Caldwell, Taheshah Moise and meteorologist Ashley Carter have been hosting Texas Today, a weekday morning news show on KCEN since May 2. KCEN, an NBC affiliate, serves Temple, Waco, Killeen, and the surrounding areas.

Caldwell joined the station in 2017. She told KCEN, “Growing up, I always saw all-white news anchors. I didn’t think that there would ever be Black newscasts. I knew there was always room for one, but I didn’t think that I would see three African Americans — male or female — permanently, all at one time. No way.”

Carter disclosed how she got to know that KCEN would hire Black women anchors. “Maybe about three weeks to a month after I decided to come here I got an email saying Jasmin is going to be joining Texas Today, which is going make the show you’re a part of all women.”

“It was pretty cool,” she said. “I was like wow. It was just the icing on the cake. Not only be able to advance my career to where I wanted, but to be able to do it next to these two.”

She continued: “It didn’t hit me then that nobody really looked like me, like the people I was watching growing up. But then as I started to do it people started to point it out, how there was not a lot of women who are Black and do the weather.”

Moise said, “I just think back to when I was a young girl and I used to watch the news with my parents and I never saw anyone who looked like me. If I did, they were outside reporting in the cold.”

Texas Today airs Monday through Friday from 4:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. Carter initially worried that people would rubbish their talents and think that they were made to host the show just because of workplace diversity.

“I think it is important to know when people watch us every morning, they will be able to see that each and every one of us earned our position on this team,” she said.