Little Neck native takes over anchor chair on NY1
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Shannan Ferry, a Little Neck native, recently took over as the anchor of “News All Day” on Spectrum News NY1. Photo via Spectrum
By Jacob Kaye
When Shannan Ferry was growing up in Little Neck, NY1 was just the channel she and her family got their news from.
But whatever the station meant to her back then, it means a lot more to her now.
It’s the station where she rose from an intern, to a reporter, to, now, the lead anchor on one of its flagship newscasts.
Ferry, who first started with Spectrum News NY1 in 2012, recently took over as the anchor of “News All Day,” the station’s weekday afternoon newscast. The Queens-native now leads the four-hour broadcast, five days of the week from the station’s studio in Manhattan.
In a recent interview with the Eagle, Ferry said she felt “really honored” to report the day’s biggest news in New York City to her neighbors and family, some of whom still pitch her stories from her old neighborhood.
“My mom will text me and tell me about what all the tennis girls are talking about,” Ferry said, adding that when a pitch doesn’t quite work out, “a gentle letdown is the key.”
A skilled reporter in her own right, Ferry says that growing up in Queens has helped her better understand the news that she now reports on.
Around a year after she first joined NY1 as a full-time reporter, Ferry began covering the 2016 murder of Karina Vetrano in Howard Beach. While the neighborhood is a little south of where she grew up, the two areas share the same suburban feel, and Ferry said residents in both neighborhoods know what it’s like to play second fiddle to some of the more bustling areas of the city. Because of that, Ferry said she felt she had a unique insight into how Vetrano’s family and friends were feeling.
“I think just knowing people who knew her was a little bit of an eye opener,” Ferry said. “It was a huge international story, so that kind of brought things in perspective.”
Ferry kept that perspective when she was promoted to co-anchor NY1’s weekend morning program, “Weekends on 1,” alongside Rocco Vertuccio, and also when she began to fill in as the host of “News All Day” while the show’s former host, Ruschell Boone, began to go through cancer treatment.
Boone, who, like Ferry, spent several years reporting on Queens, died at the age of 48 in September 2023. That’s when Ferry became one of several interim hosts, before becoming the full-time host in recent weeks.
Ferry said that she doesn’t take her new job lightly, given that her position in the anchor’s chair comes after the untimely death of her friend, who she called “a beautiful person.”
“Ruschell should still be here,” Ferry said. “I'm honored that I get to sit in it after her, and I just hope that she would be proud of me.”
“She was unbelievably supportive, and kind to me as a friend and a mentor,” Ferry added.
As for the future of the show, Ferry said she has no grand plans and is “open to seeing how the show develops.” Her predecessor left the desk in good shape.
“It already has a great foundation,” she said.
