COVERING HOME
Hopewell native joining WPXI as reporter
Not every young reporter gets to spend almost a decade at the station that hired him out of college while continuing to live in the only place he has ever called home.
Fortune was clearly on the side of Rich Pierce, a 31-yearold Hopewell native who in 2013 was hired by WTOV-TV in Steubenville, Ohio, as a weekday anchor only two weeks after graduating from Kent State University. Since Steubenville is so close to Western Pennsylvania, Pierce was able to stay in Beaver County with his wife, Katie, 7- year- old son Benny, and 4-year-old daughter Hallie Jo.
Nine years later, Pierce is ready to report on the area where he lives. He will join WPXI-TV as a reporter effective June 27. The timing worked out exceptionally well for Pierce, whose contract at WTOV was expiring and who will be reuniting with his college buddy, Mike Holden, at Channel 11.
“It was the perfect opportunity and the right station,” Pierce told the Post-Gazette. “I think WPXI does things so well. Their news department is so polished and their reporters are so excellent. I’m so excited to be part of that team and give what I have to that group.”
Pierce has known that broadcasting was his true calling since his days doing the morning announcements at Hopewell High School. He graduated from Kent State with a broadcast journalism degree and almost immediately joined WTOV as the station’s noon, 5 and 6 p.m. anchor. In 2017, Pierce transitioned to anchoring WTOV’s 5, 6, 10 and 11 p.m. shows.
His career up to this point has involved a mix of news, politics and sports reporting. While sports was his first love, his experiences covering elections in college led to a passion for politics. That’s still his favorite subject to report on as a TV journalist.
“Politics are basically the sports of the news world,” he said. “You have races, final scores, interesting characters everywhere, fan bases. It’s really similar.”
While at WTOV, Pierce has gotten to do a little bit of everything, including hosting a half-hour, long-form interview show and several cool local events like the Big 22 High School Football Award show, Lou Holtz Upper Ohio Valley Hall of Fame Induction ceremony and the Jamboree in the Hills country music festival.
Two of the most memorable stories Pierce covered at WTOV included a judge being shot right outside a Jefferson County courthouse and a day last summer when multiple tornadoes touched down in the Steubenville area. He’ll always appreciate those nine years at WTOV for the variety of stories he got to cover and how he was embraced by the Steubenville community.
“It was so special,” he said. “The fact that I got to be a Monday through Friday main anchor two weeks after college until I’m leaving on May 31 is just awesome. They trusted me with a lot and I gave them everything I had. I hope I made an impact.”
Coming back to Pittsburgh as a reporter was “a lifelong dream” for Pierce. He was always a big WPXI fan dating back to junior high, when he would watch “The Today Show” before
school and end up catching Channel 11’s morning newscast in the process. Pierce has always appreciated how “competitive and good” the Pittsburgh media market is, and he vowed to give his new WPXI colleagues and viewers “the best I have every day.”
Plus, as a political junkie who has lived in Western Pennsylvania his whole life, Pierce is downright giddy about getting to cover local politics.
“Western Pennsylvania is so incredibly diverse and important, both in the state and nationally,” he said. “I’m very much looking forward to being able to look outside my window and say, ‘ Hey, what’s going on today,’ and doing stories about it.”