Stacey Sager
Stacey Sager
Stacey Sager is an Emmy Award winning reporter for Eyewitness News on Channel 7 WABC-TV in New York City. She is a Survivor of both breast and ovarian cancer.[1] Stacey Sager joined the Channel 7 Eyewitness News team in 1996.
Early Life and Education
Stacey Sager is a native of New York. She was born in Flushing, Queens, she grew up primarily in Dix Hills, Long Island. She has lived and studied in Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C. She attended Tufts University, majoring in political science and later earned a master's degree in broadcast journalism from the Medill School of Northwestern University.[4][1]
Career
Stacey Sager started her first on-air job in television with a small station in Bangor, Maine. She then reported at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania and WJAR-TV in Providence, Rhode Island.
Stacey Sager joined the Channel 7 Eyewitness News team in 1996. Since then, she has covered a wide range of local, national and international stories, including the Bush-Gore presidential race, the war in Kosovo, the Al Qaeda prisoners in Cuba, the execution of Timothy McVeigh, the death of JFK junior, the crash of TWA flight 800, and the horrific attacks of September 11th. Following the 9/11 attacks, Stacey quickly discovered how difficult and personal her job is as a journalist after spending hours with families desperately searching for loved ones killed in the World Trade Center. The sorrow of that week was something she never thought she would ever see as a journalist or as a human being.
In the spring of 1999, Stacey completed a revealing Eyewitness News special on how she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the young age of 30. It was a unique, being the first-person account of the tough decision-making process faced by young women in crisis.
Then, in the spring of 2011, Stacey faced yet another cancer diagnosis.
Doctors discovered a pre-invasive cancer in the lining of her fallopian tubes. She was also diagnosed with the genetic mutation for breast and ovarian cancer. Stacey decided once again to take viewers on her journey through surgery and the decisions that followed, urging women at risk to get screened for genetic mutations that cause these cancers. Fully recovered, Stacey has made it a mission to inspire women to get out and get screened.
After her ground-breaking reports, Stacey has been honored with numerous humanitarian awards and was cited for her volunteer work with the American Cancer Society.
She also works extensively with organizations such as TEALWALK and the Basser Center, which are dedicated to helping women with ovarian cancer and BRCA-related cancers.
Stacey has co-hosted Channel 7's annual Emmy Award-winning breast cancer specials, and is an avid promoter and participant in the American Cancer Society's annual "Making Strides Against Breast Cancer" walk, which raises millions of dollars for breast cancer awareness and research. It is an issue that will be near and dear to her heart, as are the many stories she covers on women's issues in general.
Throughout her career, Stacey has received numerous Emmy nominations, and was awarded the statue for her coverage of the 2007 steampipe explosion in midtown Manhattan.
She and her crew were among the first to arrive, and remained on the scene for hours during live coverage.
She is also a recipient of the prestigious Michael P. Metcalf Media Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews.[4]
Stacey Sager speaks out about having and beating cancer twice on TV special
It's no doubt that Stacey Sager is among the the most fortunate people on earth after she battled and beat cancer twice. She took time to tell her emotional and uplifting story to viewers on WABC/Ch. 7 news, for two nights. [3]
"I'm either the luckiest person on the planet or the unluckiest, depending on what kind of day I'm having," Sager says of her battle.
"I chose to say I'm the luckiest."
The popular correspondent was diagnosed with breast cancer and beat it in 1998. With a history of cancer in her family (her mother died of breast cancer at 44), she went for genetic testing to see if she was susceptible to ovarian cancer. Sager had put the test off for most of the last decade, fearing that if she had a problematic genetic makeup, she'd want surgery to end the risk, and be unable to have children.
"I was afraid for 12-1/2 years, because I hadn't had all my children yet," Sager says.
"I did not want to change the fate of my family.
I don't mind losing a few of my parts, because it's all of me that matters, but I didn't want to change my life so dramatically that I'd look back and have regrets."
She went for the initial test with Ch. 7 camera crew thinking the experience would make a history.
As suspected, the test found she had a bigger-than-average chance of getting ovarian cancer.
Doctors suggested removing her ovaries and fallopian tubes as a preventive measure.
"There was a lot of laying in bed at night and wondering if the cells are spreading," she says.
"Is it just me?
Am I meant to have cancer?
I really don't want to know how I'm going to die.
There's something terrifying about that.
"I would much rather walk across the street and get mowed down by a bus; I don't want cancer to take my life.
Sager chokes up when talking about how her mother never got to see her off to college, and how her children never got a chance to meet their grandmother.
This latest test, she says, saved her life.
"I will," she says, "be there to see my children off to college."
Personal Life
Stacey lives in Nassau County with her husband and two daughters.