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Jami Floyd (born September 10, 1964) is an American attorney, journalist, network news anchor, legal and political analyst, and former White House Fellow. She is the former Legal Analyst at Al Jazeera America and the former Legal Editor and host of "All Things Considered" at WNYC Radio.
While at Binghamton University as an undergraduate, Floyd worked as a disc jockey at WHRW. Floyd graduated in 1986 with a B.A. in political science and a concentration in Journalism. In 1989, she attended and graduated with honours degree from the UC Berkeley School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, where she had been an associate editor of the law review. She received a Master of Laws degree in 1995 from Stanford Law School, Stanford University, where she also worked as a Fellow.
She began practice in civil and criminal law when she entered the law firm Morrison & Foerster. She left the firm in 1993 to join the San Francisco Public Defender office, where she worked as a trial attorney.
In 1997, she joined ABC News, where she worked as a news correspondent for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. She has also reported for Good Morning America and Nightline and has both co-anchored Early Morning News Now with Anderson Cooper and led the Consumer Unit for 20/20. Beginning in 2000, she led the Law and Justice Unit with Terry Moran and John Miller.
In February 2005, Floyd returned to Court TV (now truTV) to launch her own series, Jami Floyd: Best Defense, on which guests offered their legal analysis and spin on legal and political stories as well as coverage of major trials.
In 2010, when Court TV folded, she joined MSNBC as a legal and political analyst.
In 2012 she hosted TED Talks in NYC on NYC Media. In 2013 she joined the newly launching Al Jazeera America based in New York City and stayed with the network until shortly before its closure in 2016.
In April 2005, Floyd caused a stir with comments she made to the LA Times about then-Court TV colleague Nancy Grace. Floyd expressed a concern in the LA Times that Grace presented a televised "rush to judgment" when she said, "I rarely agree with what comes out of her mouth, but it's hard not to like the person." Floyd, who returned to Court TV's midday programming in 2005 after nearly a decade at ABC News, went on to say, "We have a lot of guests who come on and mimic Nancy." In September 2005, Floyd elaborated on her comments about Grace in Elle, saying: "Nancy's appeal is not unlike Oprah's. Nancy is Everywoman, someone you could see at a mall, on the bus. She's not an elitist from Harvard. She is what any woman could become."
From 2010 to 2014, Floyd was a regular contributor to the WNYC.org website "It's a Free Country" and the PBS.org website "Need to Know," writing about politics, race, law and justice.
Since 2010, Floyd has co-hosted, with WNYC Brian Lehrer, an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration at the Apollo Theater. Together they conduct moderate panels, introduce live music performances, host spiritual leaders and engage in conversation with a full theater from Harlem on the topic of social justice and Dr. King's vision for America.
In April 2022, Floyd was accused of plagiarism in 45 articles going back to 2010. She resigned from WNYC following the release of the report. She was told by WNYC management that the plagiarism was a fireable offense.
On February 9, 2023, Floyd filed suit in federal court against WNYC and its parent company, New York Public Radio, for race discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment.
Floyd has won more than a dozen awards, including the Gracie Awards, and the RTNDA Unity Award and she has been nominated twice for an Emmy Award.
In August 2015, she was named a Public Scholar by the New York Council for the Humanities, for a two-year term, fall 2015 to fall 2017.
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