Jennifer Waugh

The Morning Show anchor, I-Team reporter

Jennifer loves working in her hometown of Jacksonville.

Jennifer's father is from Mandarin and she spent much of her childhood growing up on the Southside. Jennifer attended Jacksonville Country Day School and continued on to Episcopal High School.

Jennifer played varsity volleyball, basketball and was a member of the crew team during her years at Episcopal. She served as captain of the volleyball and basketball teams. After graduating from Boston University's School of Journalism and studying in Paris and Buenos Aires, Jennifer returned home to be closer to her family.

She started working as an assignment editor at WJKS, Channel 17, when it was the ABC affiliate in Jacksonville. She moved on to anchor the evening newscasts at WBSG, Channel 21, in Brunswick, Ga.

Jennifer joined the Channel 4 news team in 1998. She worked as a general assignment reporter before becoming the police beat reporter.

Jennifer has covered hundreds of stories for News4jax, led its investigative team for two years, and broke several exclusive stories surrounding the arrest and prosecution of three officers with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office that were charged with murder and robbery.

Jennifer's most memorable story is the murder of 8-year-old Maddie Clifton.

"I will always remember the morning Maddie was found in her Lakewood neighborhood. We spent hours hoping Maddie had been found safe. We were all devastated when the sheriff announced Maddie was gone," Jennifer said. "In the face of such tragedy, this city rallied around Maddie's family. The way the people of Jacksonville reached out to the Clifton family was amazing."

Jennifer has won two Emmy Awards. One for an hour-long special report marking the 10th anniversary of Maddie Clifton's death and the other, Lost At Sea, recounting the struggle of three Jacksonville sailors who survived three days floating in the ocean after the boat they were fishing on, capsized. Jennifer was also awarded the regional Edward R. Morrow award for Lost At Sea.

She was also nominated for an Emmy for her coverage of the tragedy at Episcopal, when the school's headmaster was shot and killed.

Jennifer has also covered many of the top breaking news stories for The Local Station. She traveled to Houston during the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. She also tracked down a Jacksonville triple murder suspect in Mexico, then followed his arrest to Kentucky.

After anchoring the weekend newscasts for more than a year, Jennifer was promoted to the evening anchor desk in March 2006. She anchored the 5:30, 6:30 and 11 p.m. newscasts Monday through Friday until June 2013, when she took the co-anchor chair of The Morning Show.

Jennifer met her husband in Jacksonville and they have two children -- a son and a daughter.

"It is a true joy to work in a town that I hold so close to my heart," Jennifer said. "I consider myself very fortunate to meet and help Jacksonville residents as I work in the community."

Jennifer has earned four Emmy awards, three Edward R. Murrow awards and several Associated Press awards.
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