Dawn Stensland-Mendte

Dawn Stensland Mendte is an American television talk show host and news anchor working at WJLP-TV and WPHT, Entercom in Philadelphia. Stensland-Mendte was also host of CBS Saturday Morning. Stensland-Mendte has anchored the news at TV stations across the country including WBBM-TV in Chicago, KYW-TV and WTXF-TV in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and WKYC-TV in Cleveland, Ohio.

Dawn Stensland-Mendte
Born	Dawn Stensland U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Television talk show host, news anchor
Spouse(s)	Larry Mendte (m. 2000)
Children	2

Biography

Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved quite a bit in her school years to Charlotte, North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina and Farmington, Minnesota, where Dawn graduated from Farmington High School. Stensland-Mendte earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Minnesota, where she was president of the school's Society of Professional Journalists chapter. Stensland-Mendte is married to Larry Mendte, a radio talk show host, TV news commentator and news anchor.

Career

Stensland started her television career at KSTP-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when she was awarded the one paid internship that the station awards every year. She was hired as a producer and anchor at WREX-TV in Rockford, Illinois and at WKOW-TV in Madison, Wisconsin where she also hosted the Sunday morning political talk show, Capitol City Sunday. She was the main anchor at WINK-TV in Fort Myers, Florida before being hired by WBBM, the CBS owned and operated station in Chicago as an anchor and reporter. Next, she was hired by WKYC-TV in Cleveland, Ohio to co-anchor the 6 and 11 o'clock newscasts.[1]

Philadelphia

Stensland-Mendte is best known for her anchoring in Philadelphia. From 1997 to 2000, she co-anchored the 5 and 6 o'clock newscasts with Ukee Washington and Larry Kane at KYW-TV in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While she was at KYW, Stensland-Mendte also co-hosted CBS News Saturday Morning with Russ Mitchell.[2] In 2000, she was hired by WTXF-TV, the Fox owned and operated station in Philadelphia, to be the main anchor. Stensland-Mendte anchored the award winning, top rated 10 o'clock newscast for nearly a decade.[3] Since 2010, Stensland-Mendte has been the TV spokesperson for Dreambaby child safety products, manufactured by the Australian Company Tee-Zed.[4] In September, 2012, Stensland-Mendte started hosting her own talk show, A New Dawn, on WMCN-TV, located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia.[5] In March, 2013 WMCN changed the name of the show to simply "Dawn." Dawn Stensland-Mendte is now heard on WPHT talk radio as the news anchor of the Rich Zeoli show.[6] Dawn can also be seen as a featured reporter and host on Jersey Matters, a public affairs show at WJLP-TV in Freehold, New Jersey.[7]

Scandal

Stensland-Mendte's husband Larry Mendte co-anchored at KYW with Alycia Lane when she was fired for striking a New York City woman police officer and calling her a "dyke bitch" in December, 2007. [8] Lane then complained to the FBI that Mendte was looking at her emails. Mendte pleaded guilty to one federal charge and admitted to a physical romance with Lane while his wife was going through a difficult pregnancy. He ended the romance when his wife found racy emails from Lane to Mendte. In a public statement, Mendte says Lane then tried to get him fired and he looked at her emails to defend himself. These details were reported on newscasts that Stensland-Mendte anchored. When Mendte was sentenced, Dawn Stensland-Mendte took the stand looked at Lane and said "there is nothing but sadness in our house." The scandal was front page news in Philadelphia for more than a year and Stensland-Mendte was praised for her courage and for standing by her man.[9]

Congress

In 2010 Stensland-Mendte made headlines in Philadelphia when she was approached to run as a Republican in Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district. She would have run in the primary against Pat Meehan, who was the U.S. Attorney, overseeing the case against her husband. After a flurry of new reports and columns, Stensland-Mendte decided not to run.[10]

Family

Stensland-Mendte is married to Larry Mendte. Together, they have two children, both sons; Michael was born in 2004, and David was born in 2006. She is also a step-mom to Mendte’s two adult children, Stacia and Jonathan, from a previous relationship.

References

1. Schneider, Kim (December 2007). "Anchorwomen We Loved". Cleveland Magazine.
2. "CBS taps Stensland for Regular "Saturday" Role". Variety. September 2, 2008.
3. Zoren, Neal (October 26, 2009). "Fox29 Lets Dawn Stensland's Contract Expire". Delaware County Times.
4. "Dreambaby Products". YouTube.
5. Gross, Dan (September 10, 2012). "DawnStensland's Back on TV". Philadelphia Daily News.
6. "Dawn Stensland To Join Talk Radio 1210 WPHT's Afternoon Show With Rich Zeoli". CBS Philly. November 12, 2015.
7. "Dawn Stensland-Mendte", WJLP-TV
8. Celona, Larry (December 16, 2007). "Alycia Lane Arrested, Punches Cop". New York Post. New York City.
9. Glemobocki, Vicki (January 24, 2009). "Dawn's Dark Days". Philadelphia Magazine. Philadelphia: Metrocorp. Archived from the original on January 22, 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-24.
10. "Dawn of a New Era? Will Ex-Anchor Challenge Meehan?". Delaware County Times. January 24, 2009. Retrieved 2009-12-10.

Media offices
Preceded by Jill Chernikoff & Rich Noonan	WTXF-TV Fox29 10 O'clock News anchor 2000 - 2009 With: Dave Huddleston	Succeeded by Kerri Lee-Halkett & Thomas Drayton