Meet The Team

N.J. Burkett

NJ Burkett joined the Eyewitness News Team in 1989. His distinctive storytelling, production skills and award-winning foreign reporting have added a unique dimension to WABC-TV's coverage of metropolitan New York.

Over his twenty-five year career, he has reported on everything from war and diplomacy to crime and politics; from aviation disasters to natural disasters, race relations and police misconduct.

On September 11, 2001, after the two jets struck the World Trade Center, N.J. and WABC-TV photographer Marty Glembotzky narrowly escaped the subsequent collapse of the South Tower. Their work was later seen on television news broadcasts across the nation and around the world and is on permanent exhibit in the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

N.J. spent nearly three months covering the war in Iraq in 2003, and the military build-up that preceded it. He covered the terrorist bombings in Madrid (2004) and London (2005), as well as the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon (2006), and the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas (2009). N.J. covered the last three Israeli elections and the death of Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat. He witnessed the historic Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip (2005) and chronicled the Palestinian popular uprising, known as the Intifadeh, in a series of overseas assignments from 2000-2004.

In New York, he broke the biggest story of the year in 2007, when he was the first to report that three NYPD detectives had been indicted in the shooting death of Sean Bell, an unarmed motorist. N.J. was WABC-TV's lead reporter for the last three transit negotiations, as well as the Sean Bell, Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo and Martha Stewart trials. When a growing number of homeless New Yorkers complained that the city's municipal shelters were unsafe, N.J. went undercover for several weeks in the winter of 2001, disguised as a homeless man. He, and an undercover photographer, slept in New York's most notorious men's shelter.

N.J.'s work has been honored with several of the most prestigious awards in American television news. He is a two-time winner of the coveted Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio and Television News Directors Association and a four-time Emmy Award winner, including the Emmy for Outstanding On-Camera Achievement in 2003 and 2007. In 2008, he was presented with the Allen B. DuMont Broadcaster of the Year Award by Montclair State University for his "significant contributions to the field of broadcasting."

He shared the George Foster Peabody Award and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award with his colleagues at ABC News for his reporting on the September 11th terrorist attacks.

N.J. is a member of the New York Press Club and the Inner Circle of City Hall Journalists. He was elected to the Board of Governors of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, New York Chapter, in 2007.

His full name is Newton Jones Burkett. Before joining Eyewitness News, N.J. was a correspondent for WFSB-TV, the CBS station in Hartford, CT., from 1986-1989. He holds a B.A. in Political Science and a Master's in International Affairs, both from Columbia University.

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