Hanna Battah Joins ABC News as Correspondent and Overnight Anchor for ‘World News Now’ and ‘Good Morning America First Look’
ABC News has appointed Hanna Battah as the overnight co-anchor of World News Now and Good Morning America First Look, joining Sophie Flay in this role.
Previously, Battah served as the anchor for KDFW-TV’s highly-rated afternoon and early-evening newscasts in Dallas. There, she co-anchored The Ten, an unscripted program featuring live interviews. Throughout her more than seven years in Dallas, she covered significant events, including the results of the 2024 presidential election and major flooding in central Texas.
In her new position at ABC News, Battah will co-anchor during the overnight hours, leading into local morning programming for ABC Owned Television Stations and their affiliates. Ken Kneeland and Simone Swink will serve as executive producer and senior executive producer, respectively, for both overnight programs, alongside the flagship broadcasts of Good Morning America and GMA3.
Battah has reported on a range of topics, including state legislatures in the Midwest, the severe wildfires along the West Coast, and tensions at the U.S. southern border. In 2018, she earned a Lone Star Emmy nomination for her team’s coverage of an incident involving a pickup truck that crashed into her station during a live morning newscast, prompting a bomb squad investigation.
Before her tenure at KDFW-TV, Battah worked as an afternoon anchor and evening reporter for KBAK-TV/KBFX-TV in Bakersfield, CA. She began her career as an anchor and multimedia journalist at KOMU-TV in Columbia, MO.
A graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, Battah started her professional journey in radio, covering the state legislature in Jefferson City.
