Sandra Ali

CBS/Detroit has announced the hire of longtime Motor City anchor Sandra Ali.  Ali made her debut on the WWJ-TV morning newscast on March 6.  Ali left WDIV-TV in January after working there for 13 years.

“It is great to be here with all of you,” she said on her debut WWJ-TV newscast. “We can’t wait to be a part of your morning routine.”

Ali is an award-winning anchor and reporter who has made several regular network appearances on the Fox News channel, CNN and CNN Headline News.

She graduated summa cum laude from Syracuse University's prestigious S.I. Newhouse School of Journalism when she was 20. For her 21st birthday, she followed up with a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

From there, Ali went on to her first job in television, at WTAJ, the CBS affiliate, in Altoona Pennsylvania. After two years, she moved to WJBK-TV in Detroit.  She won the Associated Press award for Best Hard News Reporter in 2002, as well as a Michigan Association of Broadcasters' award for Best Breaking News Reporter in 2003. Ali also landed major interviews at the time with then Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Queen of Jordan and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, all while in Detroit.

Ali joined WLWT, the NBC affiliate in Cincinnati, Ohio in August 2004 as the station's main anchor, anchoring the station's 5, 6 and 11p.m. newscasts.

After spending six years as a primary anchor, Ali and her family moved back to Detroit and NBC affiliate, WDIV.

While at WDIV, Sandra covered several major national stories, like the 2018 demonstrations in Washington DC after the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School, and again in 2022 in Uvalde, Texas when students from metro Detroit travelled to support children who survived the mass shooting at Robb elementary school.