Janet Shamlian is a national correspondent for NBC News and appears on The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and MSNBC. She is a contributor to the prime time news magazine Dateline NBC and to CNBC, the business news channel owned and operated by NBC Universal. She has filled in as a news reader on Weekend Today.

A native of Park Ridge, Illinois, Shamlian is a graduate of Maine South High School in Park Ridge, Illinois. She holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Shamlian began her career at WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, Michigan before joining CBS station KHOU-TV in Houston. She returned to her native Chicago in 1993 when she joined WBBM-TV. She left WBBM in 1995 to join KPRC-TV in Houston. She resigned from KPRC in 1997 to spend time with her family.

In 2004, Shamlian began working as a freelance correspondent for NBC News. In 2006 she was named a full-time correspondent, first assigned to Chicago and later to Texas.

In 2007, Shamlian conducted the first evening network broadcast interview with Michelle Obama, the wife of Presidential Candidate Barack Obama on the NBC Nightly News. In addition, she has covered a variety of national and international stories for NBC including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Fort Hood shooting, Hurricane Katrina, the 7 July 2005 London bombings and the Death of Michael Jackson. She reports on energy for CNBC and has filed reports from an offshore oil platform and on top of a New Mexico wind turbine. Shamlian reported on the death of Steve Jobs from Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, CA.

Tamron Hall (born September 16, 1970 in Luling, Texas) is a day-side anchor for MSNBC and host of the program NewsNation with Tamron Hall.

Hall received her Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Journalism from Temple University. Her first reporter position was as a general assignment reporter at KTVT in Dallas, Texas. From 1997 to 2007, she worked for WFLD-TV in Chicago. As a former Chicago resident, she frequently reported on issues related to Chicago politics.

At MSNBC, Hall served as a general reporter and fill-in anchor, first achieving prominence as a substitute anchor for Keith Olbermann on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Hall then joined David Shuster as co-host of a new two-hour program, The Big Picture, which premiered June 1, 2009 and ended January 29, 2010.

Hall is currently the host of NewsNation with Tamron Hall. She is also a rotating news anchor and substitute anchor on Weekend Today and a fill-in news anchor/3rd-hour co-host on the weekday Today Show,

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is the wife of the 44th and incumbent President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first African-American First Lady of the United States. Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Obama attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School before returning to Chicago and to work at the law firm Sidley Austin, where she met her future husband. Subsequently, she worked as part of the staff of Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, and for the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Throughout 2007 and 2008, she helped campaign for her husband's presidential bid and delivered a keynote address at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. She is the mother of two daughters, Malia and Sasha, and is the sister of Craig Robinson, men's basketball coach at Oregon State University. As the wife of a Senator, and later the First Lady, she has become a fashion icon and role model for women, and an advocate for poverty awareness, nutrition and healthy eating.

Keith Theodore Olbermann ( /ˈoʊlbərmən/; born January 27, 1959) is an American political commentator and writer. Most recently, he was the chief news officer of the Current TV network and the host of the Current TV weeknight political commentary program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, until March 30, 2012, a program he hosted with the same title and a similar format on MSNBC from March 2003 to January 2011.

During his time at MSNBC, Olbermann established a niche in cable news commentary, gaining note for his pointed criticism of mainly right-leaning politicians and public figures such as Fox News Channel commentator Bill O'Reilly,President George W. Bush and 2008 Republican presidential nominee, John McCain. Though he has been described as a "liberal", he has resisted being labelled politically, stating "I'm not a liberal. I'm an American".

Olbermann spent the first twenty years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and radio stations in the 1980s, winning the Best Sportscaster award from the California Associated Press three times. He co-hosted ESPN's SportsCenter from 1992 to 1997. From 1998 to 2001, he was a producer and anchor for Fox Sports Net and a host of Major League Baseball on Fox.