DIANNE GALLAGHER
Charlotte Magazine|November 2020
Ex-WCNC reporter returns ‘home’ to establish CNN’s first Charlotte office
GREG LACOUR
DIANNE GALLAGHER

DIANNE GALLAGHER LEFT HER JOB as a reporter for WCNC-TV for CNN in August 2015, newly engaged to Alan Cavanna, who covers NASCAR for Fox Sports. Cavanna remained in Charlotte. Gallagher hit the road and stayed there. She lived in apartments in Washington, D.C., then Atlanta, even after the wedding in 2017, and connected with her husband when she could. But Gallagher spent most of her days jetting from story to story as a national correspondent.

This year, her bosses at CNN arranged for her to move back to Charlotte as the cable news giant’s first-ever permanent presence in the Queen City. The daughter of an Army officer, Gallagher had grown up moving from town to town before she attended the University of Tennessee, earned a degree from UNC Charlotte, and, in 2008, began working for tiny CN2 News in Rock Hill. She went to work for WCNC in 2012 and quickly distinguished herself as a skilled and tenacious reporter, which drew CNN’s attention.

As a correspondent, Gallagher has covered major national news stories, from the Ninth Congressional District election fraud case in Bladen County to multiple appearances by President Trump, during which the president and his fans have often directed their contempt toward journalists in general and CNN in particular. Recently, she’s reported on the effects of COVID on laborers in the meat-processing industry and on threats to election security, especially in North Carolina.

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