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When Paul Schankman joined the staff of FOX 2 in 1983, it was a homecoming. Paul grew up in St. Louis and started his journalism career here first in radio, and then television. He covered Ronald Reagan's first inauguration (tenth row seat!) for two local radio stations when he was just 20 years old.
Prior to joining FOX 2, he was a reporter/anchor at WHBF-TV, in Rock Island, Illinois.
Paul is a graduate of Parkway Central High School and graduated with honors from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville where he majored in both Journalism and Mass Communications.
Over the past 25 years at FOX 2, Paul has covered a wide variety of significant events including the Oklahoma City bombing, the 1996 Republican and Democratic National Conventions, the 1999 Superbowl and a space shuttle launch. He was also the first St. Louis television reporter to broadcast from New York after the 9/11 attack.
These days, Paul works primarily on special projects for FOX 2 News at 9, and the weekly history series "News 11 Remembers" on KPLR-TV. He also hosts the Emmy award winning show "State of the Arts," for The Higher Education Channel, on Charter Cable.
Paul has been honored with 23 regional Emmys, plus awards from the Associated Press, The Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists, and American Women in Television and Radio. He is also proud to have received Lincoln University's Unity Award, the Dartmouth College Champion-Tuck Award for Economics Reporting, and a bronze medal from the International Radio and Television Festival. In 2006, Paul won an Edward R. Murrow award for writing. Paul has been inducted into the Parkway Schools Hall of Fame, and was honored to receive the Alumni Achievement Award from SIUE.
Paul says he'll probably be remembered most as the reporter who was caught on tape being pushed into a creek by an crazed llama (watch it HERE).
The video continues to be shown on TV all over the world, more than a two decades after it happened. Paul is a voting member on the St. Louis Walk of Fame Committee, and is one of the featured pre-show announcers at the Muny.
