ABC11 co-anchor explains why she’s leaving the station and the Triangle
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- Sydnee Scofield departed ABC11 on Dec. 3 and will return Washington.
- She cited wanting to be closer to family as the reason for relocating.
- She plans to continue working in local TV in Washington.
Around two years ago, Sydnee Scofield was looking for a new job. Her fiancé was interested in moving to North Carolina.
Scofield, who’s originally from Spokane, Washington, had never lived east of Colorado, she told The News & Observer in a phone interview.
“My agent was kind of open to me going anywhere. And I said, ‘let’s really look at North Carolina.’ And I looked at the top 25 news markets, and the best places to live seem to be here,” she said.
She interviewed at stations in Charlotte and Raleigh, but landed at the Triangle’s ABC11 in December 2023, hired as a reporter and weekend morning anchor.
“I’ve never worked at a station this big before, and I’ve never worked with a staff that had such a deep experience,” Scofield said.
She had planned to stay in the Triangle for longer, but this year has brought Scofield many struggles. Her mother, who lives in Washington, has dealt with health issues. And the man she had been engaged to, Sam Marsh, was killed in a car accident about three months ago.
“I don’t have family here, and to go through something like that and not be near your people was just really hard. And I think it really reframed for me how short life is,” she said. “I know I sound so cliché, but tomorrow really is not promised.”
Scofield, who worked alongside meteorologist Steve Stewart on the weekend morning anchor desk, made the decision to leave ABC11 to return to her home state and be closer to her family.
“All of a sudden, it just felt so crazy for me to be thousands of miles away from my family,” she said.
Her last day at the station was Wednesday, Dec. 3. She and her dog, Gravy, will begin the cross-country drive soon.
What Sydnee Scofield will do next
Scofield plans to continue working in local journalism and stay in TV once she moves back to Washington. But it’s too early to say exactly what her next role will be, she said.
She wants to make it clear that a local journalist leaving the industry or leaving a market doesn’t indicate that “there’s some grand conspiracy or some budget restructuring” behind it all.
“Sometimes life just happens. And sometimes you want to be closer to your family. Sometimes you get a really great opportunity in another city,” Scofield said.
People get new jobs all the time, Scofield points out. It’s just that TV anchors and reporters are particularly visible.
Reflecting on time at ABC11
Scofield’s time in the Triangle was cut short, and her tenure at ABC11 was nowhere near as long as those of, for example, John Clark and Anthony Wilson, who both left in 2024 after more than 30 years at the station.
ABC11 was the fourth newsroom Scofield has worked in professionally, following stations in Colorado Springs, Spokane and Reno, Nevada. The viewers here are different from audiences she’s met in other markets, she said. They’ve welcomed her and shown her what Southern Hospitality is all about.
Especially during the past few months, viewers have reached out to Scofield to thank her for her work, even as she has been grieving and “really not myself.”
“The folks who watch our show — I’ve been so overwhelmed with their kindness,” Scofield said.
This story was originally published December 5, 2025 at 4:42 PM.
