Donna Hanover

Donna Hanover began her broadcasting career in 1973 at WKTV in Utica, New York, where she also served as an associate faculty member at Utica College. She subsequently worked at WTVN-TV in Columbus, Ohio, before joining KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by 1977. At KDKA-TV, she hosted and produced the Evening Magazine program. In 1980, she moved to Miami, Florida, where she worked as an anchor at WCKT.

Hanover joined WPIX in 1983 and served as the lead anchor for the station's 7:30 p.m. weeknight newscast for much of the second half of the 1980s. She also appeared on the syndicated The Wall Street Journal Report. She left her anchor position during her 1989 maternity leave and departed WPIX entirely in 1990. In 1992 and 1993, she did freelance work for WNYW.

In 1994, Hanover became First Lady of New York City while continuing her broadcasting career. She worked as a features reporter for WNYW's Good Day New York, a rotating anchor on Good Day Sunday, and a co-anchor of the Food Network program Food News and Views. She also worked periodically as a radio disc jockey for WYNY. In 1996, she appeared as a correspondent on WNYW and continued working in television and radio.

Hanover expanded into acting in the 1990s. In 1996, she played Ruth Carter Stapleton in the film The People vs. Larry Flynt and appeared as a WNYW reporter in Ransom. Beginning in 1997, she had a recurring role as Judge Deborah Bourke on Law & Order, appearing in the series through 2004. Her other television credits include Family Law, The Practice, Sex and the City, and Ally McBeal.

Her film credits include Superstar (1999), Keeping the Faith (2000), Someone Like You (2001), and Interview (2007). On television, she appeared in Alpha House (2014), playing a senator opposite John Goodman, and in Odd Mom Out (2015–2016).

Hanover also pursued a career in theatre. In 2000, she accepted the lead role in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. In 2011, she appeared in the initial off-Broadway run of Picked, written by Chris Shinn and directed by Michael Wilson at The Vineyard Theatre. She made her Broadway debut in 2012 in Gore Vidal's The Best Man, directed by Michael Wilson.

Hanover continued her broadcasting career in the 2000s and 2010s. In 2005, she hosted Fine Living's Famous Homes & Hideaways. She worked as a fill-in host for WOR for several years before joining the station full-time in February 2006, initially working with Ed Walsh and later with Joe Bartlett. She remained with WOR as a film critic and fill-in host after 2008. She also served as an adjunct professor in New York University's Department of Journalism.

In 2011, Hanover joined CUNY TV, where she continues to work as a journalist and correspondent on programs including Arts in the City and Simply Science. Her reporting has covered subjects ranging from the work of costume designer Helen Uffner to developments in space technology and the reopening of Broadway shows after the pandemic.