Last updated: October 21, 2026
Dee Dee Gatton is an American television journalist who anchors weekend editions of Sinclair’s national newscast, The National News Desk, from the Washington, D.C. area. She reached the national desk after nearly a decade in local news, working as an anchor and reporter in Oregon, Arizona, Illinois and North Carolina.
Key Takeaways:
- Dee Dee Gatton is a weekend anchor and reporter for The National News Desk, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s syndicated national newscast.
- She joined the program in 2022 after anchoring at WBTV in Charlotte, North Carolina.
- Her television career began in Oregon in 2013 and passed through Phoenix, Arizona, and Springfield, Illinois, before Charlotte.
- She is bilingual in English and Spanish and has used both languages on air.
- She was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and graduated from the College of William & Mary.
Who Is Dee Dee Gatton?
Dee Dee Gatton is a broadcast journalist whose face is familiar to viewers of local stations across the United States, including viewers in markets she has never lived in. As a presenter on a syndicated national program, she delivers a single newscast that dozens of local stations carry as part of their own schedules.
She grew up in Washington, D.C., and studied English literature at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Her Spanish fluency, sharpened by time spent studying in Spain, later became part of her on-air work in markets with large Spanish-speaking audiences.
Reader questions about the people behind familiar newscasts are a regular feature at Activemyhouse, and Gatton’s name comes up often because her program appears on so many different local channels at once.
Where Does Dee Dee Gatton Work Now?
Dee Dee Gatton works for Sinclair Broadcast Group as a weekend anchor and reporter on The National News Desk, based in the Washington, D.C. area. She shares presenting duties on the program with Jan Jeffcoat and Taylor Murray, and the newscast draws on reports from Sinclair stations around the country alongside its own original coverage.
According to Sinclair’s announcement of the program’s 2024 rebrand, The National News Desk airs on more than 80 stations nationwide, with morning, evening, late-evening and weekend editions. For an anchor, that structure replaces one city’s audience with dozens of markets at the same hour, which is a fundamental change from the local-news jobs she held before 2022.
The program began in January 2021 under the shorter name The National Desk and took its current name in September 2024. Both names in online listings refer to the same Sinclair operation and the same job, not to two separate employers.
How Did Dee Dee Gatton Build Her Career?
Dee Dee Gatton’s route to a national desk ran through five newsrooms in four states, with each move taking her to a larger audience. Her professional profile dates her first television job to January 2013, as a morning anchor and multimedia journalist in Roseburg, Oregon.
- Oregon, 2013–2015 — Morning anchor at KPIC in Roseburg, then weekend anchor and reporter at KVAL in Eugene, followed by a primary anchor and producer role at KLSR in Eugene.
- Phoenix, 2015–2016 — Anchor and reporter at KPNX, the NBC affiliate known locally as 12 News.
- Springfield, Illinois, 2017–2020 — Primary anchor and reporter at WICS/WRSP, co-anchoring evening newscasts and producing special projects and documentary work.
- Charlotte, 2020–2022 — Evening anchor, investigative reporter and consumer reporter at WBTV, where her bilingual anchoring and reporting served the city’s growing Spanish-speaking community.
- Washington, D.C., 2022–present — Weekend anchor and reporter for Sinclair’s national news desk, returning to the city where she was raised.
The pattern in that sequence matters more than any single stop. Small-market anchors shoot, write and edit their own stories, and Gatton’s early Oregon roles covered all of those skills before the larger markets added investigative and consumer reporting to her portfolio.
What Does Dee Dee Gatton Cover on The National News Desk?
On The National News Desk, Gatton anchors weekend editions and reports on national stories: politics, public safety, courts and major developing events. Weekend editions run in a longer, news-magazine style, which gives her segments room for interviews rather than headline reading alone.
Legal coverage is a recurring part of the role. Boston defense attorney Peter Elikann’s media appearances log records a live interview with anchor Dee Dee Gatton on September 28, 2026, about a disputed verdict in a Massachusetts murder trial. Segments like that one show the job clearly: she questions specialists live, on stories that began as someone else’s local news.
Her Charlotte years also shape the questions she asks on consumer stories. At WBTV she handled consumer advocacy reporting — billing disputes, warranty problems and business complaints from viewers — and that background carries into her national reporting on scams, recalls and household costs.
Dee Dee Gatton at a Glance
| Detail | Information | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Current role | Weekend anchor and reporter, The National News Desk | Wikipedia, “The National News Desk” |
| Employer | Sinclair Broadcast Group | Sinclair, Inc. press release |
| Based | Washington, D.C. area (WJLA-TV studios, Rosslyn, Virginia) | Wikipedia, “The National News Desk” |
| Born | August 1, 1987, in Washington, D.C. | Published biography profiles |
| Education | College of William & Mary — BA in English Literature, summa cum laude | Published biography profiles |
| Languages | English and Spanish | Published biography profiles |
Why Online Bios of Dee Dee Gatton Disagree
When two websites give different answers about her age, height or employer, the pages are usually out of date rather than describing different people. Many profiles still describe her as a WBTV evening anchor, a job she left in 2022, and others still use the program’s pre-2024 name, The National Desk.
The usual advice — check the first biography that ranks — fails here because biography pages rarely show when they were last verified. The reliable check is the program’s current presenter roster: if a profile conflicts with who is actually anchoring the newscast now, the profile is the stale document, and personal statistics copied from it should be treated as approximate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Dee Dee Gatton?
Dee Dee Gatton is an American television journalist and weekend anchor for Sinclair’s The National News Desk. She built her career in local news across four states before moving to national broadcasting in 2022.
Where does Dee Dee Gatton work now?
She works in the Washington, D.C. area for Sinclair Broadcast Group. Her program is produced at WJLA-TV’s studios in Rosslyn, Virginia, and carried by Sinclair stations across the country.
When did Dee Dee Gatton join The National News Desk?
She joined in 2022, when the program was still called The National Desk. The move brought her back to Washington, D.C., the city where she was born and raised.
What stations did Dee Dee Gatton work for before national news?
She worked at KPIC, KVAL and KLSR in Oregon, KPNX in Phoenix, WICS/WRSP in Springfield, Illinois, and WBTV in Charlotte. Each stop brought a larger market and a broader role, from morning anchoring to investigative and consumer reporting.
Is Dee Dee Gatton bilingual?
Yes, she works in both English and Spanish. In Charlotte she anchored and reported for Spanish-speaking viewers as well, and she has conducted interviews in Spanish throughout her career.
Is Dee Dee Gatton married?
Yes, she is married and keeps her family life private. Because of that privacy, public profiles concentrate on her professional record, so this profile covers career and background details only.
Conclusion
Dee Dee Gatton built her career the slow way — small Oregon newsrooms, bigger desks in Phoenix, Springfield and Charlotte, then a national chair in her hometown. Her path shows that national news still runs on journalists trained in local markets. This profile will be kept current as her role at The National News Desk develops.