Jennifer Johnson is finally taking the plunge into early morning news. After a decade in the business, it's the one shift she has never worked... until now. "It always looked fun, but who wants to get up that early," Jennifer always thought. Now she's a mom and is realizing she can function on limited sleep.
Jennifer covered Rochester news for 8 years at WHEC-TV before coming to 13WHAM. Sometimes that meant traveling to find the Rochester angle on some big stories including spending 3 weeks along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.
The story she became a journalist to tell came in 2006. It was a press conference in Washington DC to kick-off an awareness campaign about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Jennifer was sick with CFS for five years beginning at age 16. She went from being a three-sport varsity athlete to being so sick she missed her junior and senior years of high school and had to be tutored at home. Researchers say CFS patients experience a level of disability equal to those going through chemotherapy, have advanced stage AIDS or Muscular Dystrophy, but for years the public had little sympathy for CFS patients. A 1994 Boston Globe article about Jennifer's battle helped take away some of the stigma. For Jennifer, seeing how information can lead to understanding and tolerance made Jennifer want to be a journalist.
She grew up outside of Boston and graduated from the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Her first TV job was in Hastings, Nebraska. In her spare time, Jennifer was a volunteer firefighter.
She's now made Rochester her home and continues to volunteer. She is a member of Rochester Rotary. She's a current board member of The Dream Factory in Rochester and a past board member of the Center For Disability Rights, The Verona Street Animal Society, Inc., and CASA of Rochester/Monroe County, Inc. She ran a marathon for the Stroke Association and biked 65 miles for the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure.
Jennifer is married and is the proud mom of a little girl. She's in desperate need of cooking lessons, spends way too much time spoiling her dog Bo (a Vizsla whose full name is Bo Sox) and bugs her husband to build whatever she just saw on HGTV.
