Betty Nguyen was born in Saigon, Vietnam of Vietnamese and white American in 1st September 1974. She left her native country at a tender age in 1975 to escape from the Vietnam War and settled in the United States. Her early life was in Fort Worth, Texas where she later attended the University of Texas in Austin.
During her younger age, she was a cheerleader and member in the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority in her college life. She had an early dream of becoming an Attorney but change her mind after graduating in 1995 with a Bachelor Degree in Broadcast Journalism. She served as a freelancer correspondent for the E! Entertainment during the 2003 California gubernatorial election.
She became an anchor for Dallas newscast in an episode of the famous TV show, Walker, Texas Ranger. Later on, she became an anchor at KTVT-TV – an affiliate of
CBS in Dallas – and worked there from 1998 to 2004. She covered numerous great news among them the Space Shuttle disaster in Columbia. She later on went to be a morning anchor and a news reporter for KWTX-TV – another
CBS affiliate in Waco – from 1996 to 1998.
Betty Nguyen joined the cable news channel,
CNN in the April of 2004. Here, she has worked with the likes of John Roberts, Miles O'Brien, Tony Harris, and Harry Smith among others.
In her career, she has anchored several breaking news. Among her memorable events include the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005 and the London bombings of July 2005. She also anchored parts of
CNN coverage of the Tsunami disaster in South Asia, elections of Iraqi in 2005 and the sovereignty handover of Iraqi in 28th June 2008. More to that, while still in
CNN, she covered the disaster of the Florida hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne.
Betty Nguyen is a member of the Asian American Journalist Association. She appeared in 2004 and 2005 Advisory Board Member for Tarrant Country Asian American Chamber of Commerce. She was recognized by the Smithsonia Institute in 2007 as being the first Vietnamese-American anchor for a national news television in the United States.
Today, Betty Nguyen serves as a news anchor for the
CBS Morning News. She also covered The Early Show. She is a co-founder of Help the Hungry organization which strives to alleviate global hunger by supplying food to the poor families.
