About Michelle
Michelle is too tired to write a new bio, but hopefully you can follow this.
Michelle works in St. Louis and is a news anchor and reporter at KSDK, the NBC affiliate. In January 2022, she went viral after posting a racist voicemail that launched a series of really exciting things, like going on The Ellen Show and launching The Very Asian Foundation with fellow journalist Gia Vang.
Previously Michelle worked as a news anchor for NBC-affiliate KING-TV in Seattle. She was a morning show anchor and co-created and hosted the show Take 5, a daily, hour-long, interactive news show before it sunsetted in 2019.
She also worked as the primary evening anchor for legacy stations in Wisconsin, the Coastal Carolinas and Southwest Missouri.
Michelle has been recognized for leading innovation and audience engagement projects in newsrooms. Google, Poynter, Facebook, and RTDNA have showcased her work in newsrooms across the country. She has specialized in social media, innovation, and interactivity throughout her career.
She has received a Peabody, four national Murrow awards and 9 regional Emmys for writing, social media, innovation, and interactivity. She also received a Murrow award for her podcast Monetary Li Speaking during the height of the pandemic. Congress honored her with an Angels in Adoption award for her dedication to international and domestic adoption causes. As a Korean adoptee, Michelle spent many summers volunteering with adoptive families and in orphanages in Seoul. She launched a television program in Missouri to help foster kids find more permanent solutions and spoke at the National Press Club for international adoption awareness.
Michelle's has been featured on NBC Nightly News, CNN, Washington Post, CBS, and ABC.
Michelle grew up in a rural area near Kansas City and studied journalism at the University of Kansas. Her hobbies are mostly cooking and volunteering, and she loves being a home body with her husband Jim and their son. Jim is an Emmy-award winning photographer who now works as a software engineer for a news corporation. For fun, Michelle once played a reporter in the movie 'Tammy' and on the TV show 'The Following'.
In the News
Ellen Degeneres helps Michelle Li launch The Very Asian Foundation
A viewer told an anchor to 'keep her Korean to herself.' Then 'something amazing happened.'
Top Story with Tom Llamas: A message of division that sparked unity
St. Louis NBC anchor who started #VeryAsian explains Lunar New Year
Childcare crisis for NBC Nightly News
A viewer told an anchor to 'keep her Korean to herself.' Then 'something amazing happened.'
Top Story with Tom Llamas: A message of division that sparked unity
St. Louis NBC anchor who started #VeryAsian explains Lunar New Year
Childcare crisis for NBC Nightly News