The opportunity to join News Center 7 and the WHIO newsroom is a dream come true for Michael Gordon, who arrived in April 2021 to contribute as an investigative journalist and field reporter. Since 2013, Michael has been building an extensive reporting career that began during his days in Tempe as a Sun Devil at Arizona State University. Michael first arrived at ASU to pursue a history degree but later found himself drawn into the prestigious student-operated news publication, The State Press. Michael’s time as a student reporter helped inspire him to apply to the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in downtown Phoenix. After securing a master's degree from the Cronkite School, Michael flew from sunny Arizona to the snowy fields and frozen Great Lakes of northern Michigan for his first job as a television news reporter with WPBN 7&4 News. Having been born and raised in the Washington D.C. area, Michael was able to work much closer to home with his next career stop, moving to Montgomery County, Maryland where he worked as a bureau reporter for WDVM-TV Hagerstown. After two successful years reporting in and around the Nation's Capital, an exciting new opportunity brought Michael out to the deserts of west Texas and ABC-7 KVIA. It was there in El Paso that Michael confronted his darkest days as a journalist. On the morning of August 3rd, 2019, he was one of the very first reporters to arrive at the Walmart Supercenter where a heavily armed mass shooter had opened fire on dozens of unsuspecting Saturday morning shoppers. For weeks and even months after that horrific day, where 23 people ultimately lost their lives, Michael continued to actively cover the fallout from that tragedy in El Paso's Borderland community. Furthermore, it has not been lost on Michael that he now works in another city that has been deeply scarred by gun violence as Dayton itself also suffered a mass shooting just one day after the events in El Paso. Michael has spent much of his reporting career as a multimedia journalist, happily heading out to cover community stories and events all by himself. In addition to his field work, which on several occasions even led to him covering stories in parts of Canada and Mexico, Michael also spent two years as the co-anchor of 'Good Morning El Paso Weekend.' Throughout his time covering good, bad and sometimes truly unbelievable community moments, Michael has been guided by the principle that journalists across all platforms have an absolute responsibility to serve their viewing areas and the people in them with consistent, accurate and well sourced reporting. Although Michael's family and friends are back in Washington D.C. he's certainly not alone in Dayton. Since his first reporting days back in Michigan, Michael has been joined in his adventures by his beloved dog Flynn. Michael is also a lifelong Washington D.C. sports fan, though he is also happy to show support for local teams, including the Dayton Dragons, the Bengals and the Cincinnati Reds.