Amanda Pitts: Providence TV News Reporter

Amanda Pitts is a young news reporter on the rise based in Providence, Rhode Island. She works hard to balance her demanding profession with her own happiness and wellbeing in her life outside of work. 

Amanda was born in Taunton, Massachusetts, on August 24, 1993. She grew up in Rhode Island on the East Bay, where she lived with her mother, Leanne, and sometimes with siblings. Amanda has three half-siblings whose ages range across three decades.  

Amanda did not grow up thinking she would become a broadcast news reporter. As a kid, she did not enjoy school much and did not have any concrete ideas about what she might pursue as a career.

“Surprisingly, I barely graduated high school,” said Pitts. “I cared more about a social life than my studies and left high school not knowing what to do with my future.”

Amanda began her undergraduate study at Community College of Rhode Island. 

“I had thought I'd wanted to be a teacher, so while taking general studies classes at my local community college, I got a job at a daycare but quickly realized it wasn't for me,” said Pitts. “Around that time, I had visited my grandparents in North Carolina, and my grandmother said to me as we were watching the Today Show, ‘You should do that! You love to talk, you love to read and write,’ and I realized she might be onto something!”

The next semester, Amanda enrolled in a journalism class and found she loved it. From there, she decided to transfer to a four-year institution to major in communications. 

“I did four internships at TV stations while in college and loved every single one, and realized this is the career for me.”

Amanda graduated from Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, with a bachelor’s degree in communications in 2017. Following her graduation, Amanda moved to upstate New York to begin her career as a broadcast news reporter at WICZ-TV Binghamton, a Fox affiliate. A year later, Amanda returned to Rhode Island to work for Providence’s ABC affiliate news network, where she reported for three years. 

In September 2021, Amanda took a position with WPRI-TV, a CBS affiliate, in Providence. Though she was not born there, she considers Providence her home base and hopes to remain there. 

“The biggest difficulty [of working in the news industry] has been the pay,” said Pitts. “So many of my fellow news reporters in their first or second markets are making career changes because of how demanding this job is for such little pay. At my first on-air job in a small TV market in upstate New York, I was making $24k a year. My second job in a medium-sized market was paying me mid-30s. I'd say that is the hardest part—living your dream but also living paycheck to paycheck.”

Especially for an industry that often requires employees to have earned a bachelor’s degree, the pay is strikingly limited. Working in the news industry does not afford many a large salary outside the nation’s largest markets and most prestigious outlets.

Making good use of free time is also a difficulty of working in the news industry. Balancing work and life remains difficult for Amanda. 

“It's important in this job to be tuned in to what's going on all the time,” said Pitts. “It's what makes a good reporter a good reporter! But for my own mental health, I try to make a conscious effort to not check Twitter or my work email when I'm off on the weekends and before my shift starts.”

Working in such a public-facing role puts Amanda in the public eye. She has to be careful, even off the clock, of how she is perceived by the public, but she has always been an upstanding member of her community, formally and informally.

“Amanda brings an energy and enthusiasm to both her job and to her life,” said Sarah McAlexander, who is a good friend of Amanda’s. “She treats everything she does with the utmost importance, whether it’s reporting the news or just talking to a friend.” 

When asked whether her life outside of work would change if she had a different job where she was not in the public eye, she did not hesitate to say that it definitely would.

“I think I'm much more aware of my actions when I'm in public because everything I do reflects on me and how people see me, and also on my employer,” said Pitts. “I also can't share my personal opinions on things, and if I wasn't a journalist I'd be much more vocal.”

In an industry where every day is filled with stories about current events and politics, it is difficult for Amanda to stay out of the fray and keep her opinions to herself. It is important to Amanda to uphold the integrity of her role and the trust she hopes her viewers have in her. 

“For as long as I’ve known Amanda, I’ve been impressed by how well she presents herself to the world,” said Ann McAlexander, who has known Amanda for the last several years as a family friend. “She always looks extremely polished and speaks articulately and with such grace. In a role where she is so publicly visible, I know it can’t be easy to always be so together.”

Amanda is grateful to serve the community she grew up in through her work as a broadcast news reporter. She hopes to continue reporting in Providence for the foreseeable future, though her natural on screen presence and poise may elevate her and take her elsewhere down the road.