Former Southeastern Channel news reporter and anchor Paul Rivera has been reporting on the top stories in Seattle, Wa. for KOMO-TV (ABC) Ch. 4 (DMA 12) since he arrived at the station eight months ago. Rivera has covered one of the city’s most controversial issues, the homeless encampment across from Seattle’s city hall. In the process, he conducted a live interview in textbook fashion with Seattle’s mayor, who did not want to address the problem on television. On occasion, Rivera has used creative methods of reporting like delivering a live shot from a car using an iPhone to cover a landslide on a Seattle highway. Rivera moved to KOMO-TV after two years at WESH-TV Ch. 2 (NBC) in Orlando, Fla. (DMA 18). Upon graduating from Southeastern in 2015, Rivera was hired as news reporter-anchor by KLTV Ch. 7 (NBC) in Tyler, Tx. (DMA 114) before moving to WIS-TV Ch. 10 (CBS) in Columbia, S.C. (DMA 74) as anchor-reporter prior to joining WESH in Orlando.
While at the Southeastern Channel as anchor-reporter for “Northshore News”, Rivera won multiple first-place regional awards for his news reporting and anchoring given by the Society of Professional Journalists (Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee) and Southeast Journalism Conference (eight states in the southeast U.S.). In 2015 he was named Louisiana’s “Student Broadcaster of the Year” given by the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters from all college television and radio students in the state. That year he was the first college student in history to host and moderate Louisiana’s Gubernatorial Forum for a live, statewide audience on Louisiana Public Broadcasting.