Rita Cosby

About the guest

Rita Cosby is one of the most recognized and respected broadcasters in America, who has attained an extraordinary level of success in multiple arenas that few in the media landscape have ever achieved

An acclaimed Emmy-Winning TV Host, now on Saturday Report with Rita Cosby on Newsmax TV, she is best known for anchoring her highly rated primetime shows on Fox News Channel and NBC. She is also a Veteran Correspondent, Multiple Best Selling Author and chosen as Legend of The Year for her shows on WABC Radio.

Achievements

Career and experience

Throughout her illustrious career, Rita has secured exclusive interviews with more than twenty world leaders, including seven U.S. Presidents. She became the first American journalist to interview Pope Francis when she spoke to him in Spanish at the Vatican about his Mideast Peace Summit.

Considered one of Television News’ female trailblazers, she joined Fox News Channel at its inception, and soon became a lead reporter during the 1996 and 2000 Presidential campaigns. To this day, she has interviewed virtually every major political candidate across the nation.

Rita also secured historic back-to-back interviews with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and conducted another exclusive with Arafat when his compound was under siege in April 2002. She was the first journalist to see the suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo and witness an actual interrogation. Years earlier, while broadcasting live from Belgrade during the NATO bombing, she broke the news that three American POWs were going to be released, and obtained an exclusive interview with former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic while he was imprisoned at The Hague.

While hosting top-rated Rita Cosby: Live and Direct, she traveled extensively for the show, covering breaking news and other major stories, originating live for several weeks from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region to report on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as well as from the war zone in Afghanistan and along the U.S.-Mexico border. Her reporting reached new heights when she courageously did a Skydive at 13,500 feet with The Golden Knights, the elite U.S. Army parachute team.

She has received numerous awards and honors for her esteemed broadcast work, including three Emmy Awards, eight Gracie Awards, the Matrix Award, the Association of Women in Communications Headliner Award, the Jack Anderson Award and she was selected by Cosmopolitan Magazine as a “Fun and Fearless Female.” Because of Rita’s “extraordinary journalism and exemplary service on behalf of her community,” October 11th, 2010 was officially named “Rita Cosby Day” in the State of New York.

A first-generation American, she was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, Lech Walesa Freedom Award, Yellow Ribbon Medal of Freedom and Jan Karski Humanitarian Award. Having spoken at the United Nations, Capitol Hill and in Normandy, France for the 75th Anniversary and 80th Anniversary of D-Day, Rita also hosts the annual Troopathon TV Telethon, a star-studded broadcast which has raised many millions of dollars for care packages sent to active duty U.S. service members around the world.

As highlighted in her best selling memoir Quiet Hero, her father, a Polish Resistance fighter, participated in the Warsaw Uprasing and was a prisoner of war in a Nazi camp, ultimately saved by American troops. In 2019, Rita was heralded at The White House, New York City Hall and at The Presidential Palace in Warsaw, where she was decorated by President Andrzej Duda with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit, one of Poland’s highest civilian honors.