WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Local 5 announced Monday Samantha Mesa will join the news team and be a daily fixture and co-anchor of the ABC Affiliate’s evening broadcasts starting June 7, 2021.
Mesa comes to Local 5 from CBS 4 Valley on the Texas/Mexico border where she was a morning and midday anchor, producer and reporter. Before her work in Texas, Mesa produced a documentary exposing the damaging practice of skin bleaching.
Following Sabrina Ahmed and Jackie Schmillen on the morning broadcasts, Mesa will anchor the evening newscasts alongside Stephanie Angleson.
“Samantha’s ability to connect with the viewers through her story-telling and work in the community immediately stood out,” Local 5 News Director Ryan Robertson said. “Folks in Des Moines will get to experience that for themselves when Samantha joins us this summer and we couldn’t be more thrilled.”
As an undergraduate student, Mesa received a Gilman Scholarship to study abroad in Morocco and Tunisia during the Arab Spring Uprisings—also known as the Arab Spring Revolution—across North Africa and the Middle East. Her report, “Women’s Voices Will Be Heard,” told the stories of women re-writing the Tunisian constitution after the dictatorship crumbled, and how local communities began creating a democracy. This experience was a turning point for Mesa, and deepened her passion for journalism.
Mesa earned her master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York, where she covered news in the five boroughs. Mesa is excited to bring her passion for storytelling to the Local 5 News team.
“I am thrilled to join the high-caliber team at Local 5,” Mesa said. “I’m looking forward to getting to know the Des Moines community and calling it home. For me, journalism shows the heart of our communities and our lives, and gives us the opportunity to find solutions to problems. It gives us the ability to record history and give context to changes and challenges we face, especially in these unprecedented times.”