Barbara Ann “Bobbie” Battista was a producer, on-air host and primary evening news anchor at WRAL-TV from 1974 to 1981.

Battista graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor’s degree in radio, television and film production. Not long afterward, she began her broadcast career as a DJ at WAKS Radio – a country music station in Fuquay-Varina. Her on-air name was “Bobbie Ann.”

Battista joined WRAL-TV in 1974 as a secretary, but she quickly convinced station management to put her on the air in 1976. She produced and anchored the WRAL morning news and other special programming until 1977, when she joined Charlie Gaddy on the station’s 6:00 and 11:00 o’clock news. Gaddy and Battista formed the first male-female anchor team in the Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville television market.

Over the next four years WRAL achieved ratings dominance and in late 1981 Bobbie answered Ted Turner’s call to join a start-up cable network known as CNN. She was hired as one of the original anchors on CNN Headline News, but by 1986 Battista moved to CNN’s flagship cable channel where she became one of the network’s most recognizable stars.

During this time at CNN Battista also anchored a daily program for CNN International, making her the only anchor in CNN history to work at all three CNN networks. In 1998 Battista was chosen to host television’s first daily interactive talk show – Talkback Live.

Battista left CNN after the company merged with America Online in 2001. In 2002 she became a principal in the Atamira Communications firm in Atlanta, where she provided communications consulting for corporate clients.

In 2009, she began making periodic appearances on the Onion News Network (ONN), a satirical news organization. And in early 2014, Battista was named host of Georgia Public Broadcasting’s new nightly news program On the Story.

Among Battista’s many honors is the prestigious George Foster Peabody award for a documentary on juvenile crime.