Laura Haefeli
2020 saw the worst pandemic in modern history. The most devastating wildfires in California history. A watershed moment in the movement to ensure Black Lives Matter. And Laura Haefeli reported on it all. Armed with an International Relations degree from Syracuse University in 2015, Laura Haefeli earned her journalism chops on the streets of New York City.
As a news assistant for NY1, she gathered stories for reporters, shot, edited and ran live shots to help cover landmark stories: The 2016 presidential election, the Chelsea bombing and only-in-New-York celebrations from the Thanksgiving Day Parade to the New Year’s Eve Ball drop in Times Square.
Her first on-air job was as a reporter for the News 12 Networks in the greater New York City area. There, Haefeli covered breaking stories like the pipe bombs mailed to CNN’s Manhattan headquarters as well as cultural milestones like the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. Simultaneously she worked as a radio reporter for 1010WINS in New York City covering breaking news and feature stories.
In February of 2020 she took a reporter position with CBS13 in Sacramento, California. Two weeks later, the Covid-19 pandemic transformed the country and our news coverage. When the Princess Cruise line delivered the first wave of coronavirus-positive patients to California, Laura Haefeli covered their arrival at Travis Air Force Base and conducted the first ever interview with a COVID-19 positive patient on U.S. soil.
Laura has covered California’s trial by fire. Working to convey the scope of the wildfires even as she herself was flanked by a curtain of flames. She interviewed the firefighters working against time and the locals who’d run out of time to save their homes.
After the death of George Floyd at the hand of Minneapolis police, protests ramped up in California’s capitol city. Laura Haefeli covered the communities’ reaction to his killing from peaceful protests, to damaging riots, to somber memorials.
And when the Golden State Killer was finally sentenced, Laura Haefeli was the only reporter to score an interview with the serial killer’s defense team.
Laura will be on the panel Covering Breaking News during the Pandemic.