Niskayuna native Olivia Jaquith returns to her roots, reporting for CBS6

“What we have here is really special. You don't find that sense of community in many other places,” Jaquith said.

After working in several news markets along the East Coast — covering everything from sports to politics — Jaquith recently became an anchor/reporter at the Niskayuna station. She’ll be anchoring the weekend morning newscast, starting at 6 a.m. Saturdays and 7 a.m. Sundays. She’ll also report for the morning newscast three days a week.

The station is just down the street from Niskayuna High School, where Jaquith graduated from in 2013. There, she was involved in the school’s musical theater program and was the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper. She also ran on the school’s track team and played soccer.

Due to some experiences with stage fright as a child, broadcast journalism wasn’t initially her plan. However, she always enjoyed writing and hoped to go into sports print journalism. But that changed at Marist College, where she also ran track. As part of the communications program there, she got involved with the college’s sportscast, eventually getting in front of the camera.

“I got so nervous but I really enjoyed it as I started to get over that fear and sort of caught the bug,” Jaquith said.

She interned during the summers in the sports departments at the Times Union as well as at CBS6. After graduating a semester early in 2016, she moved to New York City and worked at NBCUniversal as a production assistant for USA/Syfy networks.

“The magic of walking into 30 Rock every day to go to work was never lost on me. Every single day that I went to work, I was in awe,” Jaquith said.

It did come with its own set of challenges.

“I was really young at the time, had just moved to New York straight out of college. Because I graduated a semester early, most of my peers were still in school,” Jaquith said. “New York City has millions of people, but they're all there for themselves, for the most part. So it can be a really lonely city.”

It was around that time that she realized she wanted to work in local news. After two years there — and followed by a short stint as a public information specialist at Capital Region BOCES — she landed a morning anchor/producer position at WENY in Elmira.

The schedule was grueling. Starting at 11 p.m., the team would write through the night and then around 4:30 a.m., Jaquith would get ready to go on air from 5 to 7 a.m.

“It was a lot. But it’s situations like that where you make really wonderful friends because you're in the thick of it, you're in the trenches together,” Jaquith said. “A lot of people end up leaving, but because of those experiences, people are also bonded.”

“I've continued to make friends along the way but my friends at my first market are some of the closest and dearest that I have,” she added.

It was at the station that she met her husband, Tyndale, whom she married in 2023.

After leaving WENY, Jaquith took a job at 8NEWS WRIC in Richmond, Virginia, where she worked her way up from a multimedia journalist role to being an investigative reporter. There she scored a one-on-one interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, and her work covering the November 2022 mass shooting at the University of Virginia was recognized with the Virginias Associated Press Broadcasters Award for Best Continuing News Story.

Jaquith then headed further south, becoming a reporter and traffic anchor for NBCUniversal’s station in Miami, Florida, covering stories in English and Spanish. But after about a year there, Jaquith felt it was time to return to her roots. She landed the anchor/reporter job at CBS6, and moved to a home in Niskayuna, near her parents Rosemarie Perez Jaquith and Grant Jaquith.

“We are thrilled to welcome Olivia Jaquith back to her home, [in] the Capital Region, as she joins our reporting team at CBS6,” said Stone Grissom, the CBS6 Albany WRGB news director.

“Olivia's return reinforces our unwavering commitment to serving the community,” he said.

Jaquith started at the station last week and went on air earlier this week.

“It's just kind of crazy to think that somebody who was watching me play soccer when I was 5 years old is now going to be watching me potentially talking about something that happened in their neighborhood on television,” Jaquith said. “I don't take that lightly at all.”

If anything, reporting in her hometown has made her care more deeply about the job.

“It's a lot of pressure because you don't want to do anyone a disservice and you also want to hold people accountable for their actions,” Jaquith said.

Her connection to the area is partly why Grissom wanted to bring her on board.

“With her wealth of first-hand experience and deep-rooted knowledge of the area, Olivia embodies the essence of community-based reporting that is at the core of our station's values,” Grissom said. “Her dedication to delivering distinctive and impactful stories resonates with our continued mission as the area’s first in news and first in the community.”

“I just had such a wonderful experience here and I know not everything is all sunshine and rainbows. No place is perfect but I loved growing up here and so I want to continue to grow here,” Jaquith said.

Images: Olivia Jaquith at CBS6