Award-Winning Journalist Nadeen Yanes joined the ABC Action News team in November of 2023 as the Evening Weekend Anchor and Reporter. You can watch her Saturday and Sundays at 6pm and 11pm. Nadeen's specialty is Florida's fractured insurance market and how residents are trying to navigate the high costs.
Most recently, Nadeen was the main evening anchor at Fox 4 News in Fort Myers, Florida. While in Fort Myers, she led breaking news coverage of Hurricane Ian. Following the deadly storm, she also led an investigation titled 'The Evacuation' which revealed Lee County did not follow their own evacuation plans. The Category 5 storm killed nearly 150 people in Florida alone. Two weeks after the investigation aired, the Lee County Manager announced he was retiring. In February, that investigation was nominated for a Florida Associated Press Broadcasting Award.
She is a Florida native, born in New York but raised in Central Florida. She's spend the last decade reporting in Florida, including 6 years as the lead General Assignment Reporter at the CBS Affiliate in Orlando, Florida. Before that, Nadeen spent four years in Virginia covering both the Richmond and Hampton Roads markets and started her career in Panama City Beach Florida.
Over her career, she’s covered countless breaking news stories, including the 2010 Panama City School Board Shooting, the 2016 Pulse Nightclub Massacre, and several hurricanes, including Hurricane Irma in 2017 and the aftermath of Hurricane Michael in 2018. Nadeen also led daily coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on Orlando’s $75 billion dollar tourism industry and economic recovery.
In 2020, Nadeen led her own weekly franchise in Orlando called ‘Boomtown’ tackling issues that come with growth and development as 1500 people were moving to Central Florida each week. This series focused on affordable housing and the economic impact and growing pains of a booming population. For her 'Boomtown' series, Nadeen was awarded an Edward R. Murrow Award in July of 2020. She also is a 5-time Florida Associated Press Broadcast winner.
Nadeen is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and is beyond excited to serve Southwest Florida, especially representing those of the LatinX community, as she is proudly half-Puerto Rican and half-Palestinian.
Nadeen is also a 2010 graduate of the University of Florida and proudly says she was there the same four years as Tim Tebow. For fun, Nadeen enjoys training her Yorkie puppy, Lola, spending time with her old lady cat Leila (aka Kitty) and tending her nearly 50 house plants.
If you have any story ideas or insurance struggles you'd like Nadeen to look into, email her at Nadeen.Yanes@wfts.com.
