It’s quiet in NBC4 Washington’s studio as Jummy Olabanji sits behind the desk, waiting for the Today show anchors to toss to affiliates. The automated camera moves into position — but the space really springs to life when Olabanji warmly greets viewers and gives them a local news update.
Olabanji has been co-anchoring the station’s weekday 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. newscast, News4 Today, for nearly five years now, since moving back to the area after a three-year stint at sister station NBC New York, in the nation’s top media market. But the journalist is no stranger to the DC area. She worked mornings for WJLA, Channel 7, for eight years before taking her position in New York — and she grew up in Northern Virginia.
“New York City is an incredible place to work, but I missed home almost immediately,” Olabanji says. “When Channel 4 here called and said, ‘Hey, we’d like to talk to you about an opportunity. Would you ever come back home?’ After three years in New York, I was ready.”
It was a homecoming for another reason, too: Olabanji was an intern for NBC4 Washington when she attended Virginia Tech.
Now, as she turns 40, she’s happy to be living in DC with her husband, religion reporter Darren Sands, and near her mother, who resides in Loudoun County, and her sister, who works in Tysons. (Her brother lives in New York and visits frequently.) As she marks her five-year anniversary in this position in July, she’ll cover the Summer Olympics in Paris for the NBC affiliate.
In Front of the Camera
Jummy Olabanji hadn’t always dreamed of a career on camera — but when the opportunity presented itself, she was ready for it.
She was born in Toronto, and her family moved to NoVA for her mother’s job when Olabanji was about 9 years old. She grew up in the Sully Station area of Centreville and attended schools in Chantilly, joining a performance choir at Stone Middle School. She continued that in her two years at Chantilly High School, then at Westfield High School. She was a member of the first graduating class from Westfield, also in Chantilly.
“I was always kind of a stage kid, you know, traveling to all the dance competitions on weekends and all the outfit changes and recitals,” she says. (Her dance studio was at the Fairfax County Government Center and has since moved to Gainesville.)
Once she started working in broadcast journalism, people would often ask her if she was nervous being on air, but she says her performance background made it easy. “I’m like, ‘No, because when I was 5, I was tap dancing on stages.’ And so, I’ve always just loved being around people, in front of people.”
She paired that love of performing with her interest in photojournalism and writing. In high school, she was a member of the yearbook, newspaper, and literary magazine.
“When I got to Virginia Tech, I started as a junior staff writer for the Collegiate Times. I was into print. I wanted to do magazines. I thought I was going to get a New York City internship. You know, go work at like, Cosmo or Marie Claire, that kind of thing — Ebony,” she says. She was disappointed when she wasn’t selected for those internships, and that was when her college adviser, Dale Jenkins, suggested she apply for an internship at a TV station, saying it would help her become well-versed in the journalism field. So, she took a broadcast writing course and got an internship at the Roanoke TV station. Later, she landed her internship at NBC4 Washington.
Familiar Face
Today, her position as an anchor in her hometown allows her to combine her experience in broadcast journalism with her familiarity with the DMV.
“I think it’s such an advantage to have anchors who are from the area working in the area, because when we talk about communities and what’s impacting our communities, whether it’s education, whether it’s crime, transportation, infrastructure, traffic — those are the communities we live in,” says Olabanji’s colleague and friend Eun Yang. Yang, who grew up in Maryland, was Olabanji’s first co-anchor on the NBC4 Washington morning newscast. Last year, Yang shifted to the evenings and Olabanji was joined by Tony Perkins at the anchor desk.
“Those are our neighbors, like literally, where we grew up, and people we know and the teachers who are still teaching in our schools, and so we care about the community in a personal and direct way,” Yang says. “The fact that Jummy is from Northern Virginia — when we’re talking about a particular school or particular neighborhood or particular issue impacting a certain part of Northern Virginia, she knows what she’s talking about. She’s walked those halls and been on the streets, and I feel like that definitely gives you an advantage because we’re trying to tell impactful stories. … When you’re connected to the people, she wants to make sure that she’s doing right by them and their stories.”
Olabanji says when she sees viewers out in public, they tend to fall into two camps: A group who watches her from a distance, thinking she looks familiar and asks if it’s really her; and those who feel so connected after seeing her in their living rooms every morning that they’ll approach her as if they already know her personally. “I love it all. It’s just so kind,” she says. “I love meeting people. I just want to know, ‘Where do you live? Where are you watching from?’”
A Challenging Schedule
That approachable personality is important in a morning news anchor, says Yang. “I think she communicates in a way that is natural and comfortable,” Yang says. “Especially in the mornings, you’re inviting people into your home at an intimate time. And Jummy is someone you want to have a cup of coffee with, you know, spill the tea with, and have a conversation with. I feel like she has a depth of knowledge on so many different interests and subjects that are going on in the world, but she will easily also talk about Beyoncé and her new hit. … It’s so much fun to be able to work with someone whom you trust as a journalist but also like as a person.”
Yang says she and Olabanji clicked immediately. “As soon as we started working together in the morning, we were fast friends, right away, chatting during breaks, hanging out after work,” Yang says. “I consider her a good friend. Now, even though we are no longer working the same schedule, I still talk to her all the time.”
Having worked mornings for more than 10 years herself, Yang emphasizes how “grueling” it is to have to wake up every weekday by 2:30 a.m. “I don’t know how to explain how difficult it is to do that schedule. You’re getting up in the middle of the night. Even if you were to sleep the hours you want to sleep, it’s just not normal. Your body is constantly in a state of shocking fatigue. And Jummy does so much work for the community, and she’s not looking for the spotlight.”
Taking the Lead
Yang and others at the station wanted to make sure Olabanji was recognized on the air after she was honored last year by a group that’s close to her heart, the National Kidney Foundation. The group gave Olabanji the Leadership in Action Award.
“She’s not looking for credit. She’s just [working in the community] because she knows it’s important and she wants to give back to the community,” Yang says.
Olabanji, who has a master’s degree in communication and leadership studies from Gonzaga University, is on the kidney foundation’s board of directors and has been working with the group for more than 10 years. Her mother, who worked in special education for Fairfax County Public Schools until she retired in June 2020, received a kidney transplant in November 2020. “She’s battled a genetic form of kidney disease for many years, so that’s how my family got involved,” Olabanji says. Her mother couldn’t have any family members at the hospital due to COVID-19 protocols at the time, so all they could do was drop her off there. “She got the call, like two days before Thanksgiving. So, she spent Thanksgiving at the hospital, but it’s just been amazing. And it just made me such a bigger proponent of … people signing up to be organ donors.”
She also works closely with her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, which is the first historically Black sorority, founded in 1908 at Howard University. “It allows me just another way to give back to the community,” she says. “I’m a mentor to a student at Howard who is an undergraduate member of the sorority, and she’s a journalism major at Howard. I’ll help her navigate and apply for internships. She graduates in May, so she’s ready to get out there and get her first job. I’m just able to kind of give her advice and guide her. It’s been a ton of fun.”
Going to the Games
Next up, Olabanji is looking forward to bringing her local perspective to the Summer Games, along with teams from seven other NBC sister stations.
“It’s special for so many reasons. Obviously, being born in Toronto — until I moved here, I was in French immersion school. I’m not bilingual or anything like that. But that was one of my first languages,” she says.
Another reason? She and her husband are wine connoisseurs who are looking forward to spending time in Paris. “I’m a big wine lover. Not just casual, like, ‘I’m going to order wine because we’re at dinner.’ My husband and I collect wine. We’ve gone on vacation to most of the major wine regions, like we’ve been to Burgundy and to Bordeaux.” (They also like to check out Virginia wineries in Middleburg and Leesburg when they visit her mom in Loudoun.)
But those connections are just the icing on the cake. “I just love the Olympics,” she says.
Now, she’s getting ready to make the month-long trip and will have company from her husband, mother, sister, and brother while she’s there.
“Work is going really well — great opportunities,” she says. “I just really feel great about turning 40 this year. I don’t know what else is on the horizon for this year. But I’m claiming that it’s just going to be an amazing year.”
Feature image of Jummy Olabanji by Michael Butcher
This story originally ran in our April issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.