Journalist and CNN Anchor
Image from CNN
Kiran (which means “ray of light” in Sanskrit) was born in Shanta Bhawan Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal. Seven months later, her parents, Homa Chetry and Nancy (who met while serving in the Peace Corps in Nepal) moved their new family of three to America. Kiran grew up in Gaithersburg, Maryland and attended Montgomery Blair High School (Silver Spring, Maryland) where she served in student government, danced on the pom squad, and competed on the swim team. Upon graduation she enrolled at the University of Maryland, College Park’s College of Journalism, where she joined the Alpha Pi chapter of Delta Delta Delta sorority and received her bachelor of arts in broadcast journalism.
News Anchor
Chetry began her career in 1995 at News 21 in Rockville, Maryland. The next year she moved to WICU-TV in Erie, Pennsylvania, where she was the main anchor and health reporter. (She met her future husband Chris Knowles there who was the prime time news anchor.) She received the Best Enterprise Reporting award from the Pennsylvania Associated Press Broadcasters Association in 1997 for her series “Young and Hooked,” which looked at teen smoking. In 1999 Chetry went from WICU-TV to KXTV in Sacramento, California to work as a morning anchor and reporter until joining Fox News Channel.
In 2001 Chetry joined the cable news network Fox News Channel as a general reporter, first appearing on March 8, 2001, in a story about eating ice cream. The next year Chetry was honored with the Making our Mark (MOM) Award from the Association of Nepalis in the Americas. During her time at Fox News, she worked as a rotating anchor for Fox News Live and the early morning news program Fox & Friends First. In late 2005, she became a regular co-host on the network’s weekend morning news program, Fox & Friends Weekend.