By Shannon McFarlin News Director
The new co-anchor of the Saturday edition of the “Today” Show has roots in Paris.
NBC Senior Legal Correspondent Laura Jarrett has joined the network’s morning program as co-anchor, succeeding Kristen Walker, who is taking over as moderator of “Meet The Press”. Jarrett will sit alongside Peter Alexander to anchor the Saturday edition of the long-time staple of morning news.
Jarrett was named to the co-anchor position just six months after she was hired as NBC Senior Legal Correspondent.
Jarrett is a member of a storied Paris family of educators, journalists and doctors. She is the great-grandchild of William Robert Jarrett and Annie Sybil Thomas Jarrett, who were long-time educators at the Henry County Training School. She is the grandchild of Vernon Jarrett, who was a syndicated Chicago columnist and she is the daughter of Valerie Jarrett, who was senior advisor to President Barack Obama and of Dr. William Robert Jarrett, who was on the staff of Jackson Park Hospital in Chicago.
Her great-grandfather William Robert Jarrett was principal at the former Henry County Training School and his wife, Annie Sybil Thomas Jarrett taught there for 30 years. Both are buried at Greenwood Cemetery.
Her grandfather, Vernon Jarrett was a journalist and political activist. Jarrett began his career writing for the Chicago Defender in 1946 and was a columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. Her uncle, Dr. Thomas Dunbar Jarrett was President of Atlanta University in Chicago.
Her father Dr. William Robert Jarrett was the newly appointed director of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Jackson Park Hospital when he died suddenly of cardiac arrest at 40 years old. Her mother Valerie Jarrett was Senior Advisor to President Obama, afterwhich she has been on the board of the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and is a distinguished senior fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.
In an interview, Valerie Jarrett attributed her switch from a private to a public career to the birth of their daughter, Laura, and her own desire to do something that would make their daughter proud.
Al Roker praised the appointment of Jarrett to the “Today” Show, saying he was ‘so thrilled’ for Jarrett and for the appointment of Welker as new moderator of “Meet The Press”. Roker said, “Both are the best at what they do, are unbelievably lovely and genuine, and are wonderful colleagues. Congratulations, ladies.”