About
Award-winning veteran broadcast journalist and TV host Melanie Hebert is a multi-passionate entrepreneur, professional speaker, business coach, podcast host, and active mother of three children. She is often seen in feature films and network television shows playing the role of a news anchor or reporter and has contributed her media expertise as an Adjunct Professor at Louisiana State University. A New Orleans native, Melanie anchored and reported in the television news industry for more than a decade at several major network affiliates from Southern California to New Orleans. She was the anchor of an Emmy-winning newscast and has been nominated for an Emmy for her reporting. In 2021 Melanie was honored with the Iris Empowered Woman Award for Outstanding Contribution to Women in Film and Television. Melanie retired from daily TV news in 2013 while anchoring at one of the top CBS affiliates in the United States, the legendary WWL-TV, where she co-anchored the highest-rated weekday morning show in the Crescent City and one of the highest-rated in the country. She was also the creator and host of a weeknight half-hour talk show there focusing on hot topics and conducting in-depth interviews with public figures.
Prior to working at WWL Melanie anchored the weekday morning news at NBC affiliate WDSU where she also served as a consumer reporter and investigated unscrupulous contractors who were delaying Hurricane Katrina recovery. She anchored several 12-hour shifts during the station's week-long global coverage of Hurricane Gustav, relaying vital information across the country via Direct TV and online during Gustav's massive evacuation, and she interviewed then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama, a presidential candidate at the time, about his support for coastal protection. In her favorite assignment for WDSU, as a life-long New Orleans Saints fan, Melanie anchored and co-produced several live newscasts from Miami for the Saints’ first Super Bowl appearance and win, and she helped expand the morning show by launching New Orleans’ first 4:30 a.m newscast leading into her already-established daily show. Morning show ratings drastically increased during Melanie’s time as a leader there, and she was selected to co-host several special projects such as the Children's Miracle Network Telethon and the New Orleans Jazz Half-Marathon live coverage.
Melanie shot her first story for her hometown of New Orleans on the West Coast in Anne Rice's Rancho Mirage home where she conducted a sit-down interview with the legendary author who was from New Orleans. In Southern California Melanie anchored the top-rated morning and afternoon news programs in Palm Springs, and she worked as a freelance entertainment reporter in Hollywood for movie screenings. Stories she covered at ABC affiliate KESQ included the massive 2007 Sawtooth Complex Fire, the death of former U.S. President and Rancho Mirage resident Gerald Ford, and a 5-part series of California-connected stories from New Orleans on the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Additionally, her discovery and investigation of a California real estate scam prompted several class action lawsuits and an arrest warrant, and she followed investigations beyond the U.S. border to Mexico while partnering with her Telemundo colleagues.
Melanie began her television career in Los Angeles interning for the nationally-syndicated entertainment news magazine “Extra" before accepting her first anchor job at the NBC affiliate in Baton Rouge. There she anchored weekday mornings and partnered with NBC Network News to serve as an Executive Producer in creating, producing, and anchoring a two-week local Olympic newscast series "From Baton Rouge to Athens," highlighting the many Olympians with Baton Rouge ties. She also hosted and produced a weekly public affairs show, created/produced/hosted two half-hour specials on the Miss Teen USA pageant, and hosted the MDA Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon in Baton Rouge for several years while actively volunteering for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. In addition to her television news quick success in Baton Rouge, Melanie also coached the LSU Tiger Girls dance team who placed 2nd in the nation under her direction.
Melanie is now an entrepreneur who lives in Baton Rouge with her husband and three children. From her home she has grown an international business coaching entrepreneurs across the United States and Canada, while part of her passion remains directing the publicity and marketing for the non-profit Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre. She graduated from LSU in 2002 where the student body voted her homecoming queen and she was captain of the prestigious Golden Girl Dance Line. She majored in Mass Communication with a concentration in Broadcast Journalism and minored in Photography and Dance. She also danced at NYU’S Tisch School of the Arts on a partial scholarship while working part-time at a Manhattan law firm. Melanie is happy to be raising her family back in Baton Rouge while working on multiple exciting new business ventures.