Stepping Into Today

At the Today show’s Rockefeller Plaza studio, Sheinelle Jones, co-host of the 3rd Hour of Today, sits at the anchor desk beside Dylan Dreyer and Al Roker and makes small talk before the show goes live. Then, with a cue from the stage manager, Jones is ON. She cheerily welcomes viewers back to the program with her signature, casual effervescence. It’s a little before 10 a.m. on this Tuesday morning, but the hosts of one of America’s most-watched morning shows have been at work for hours, jumping deftly from segment to segment.

Inside the studio, three cameras quickly pan to the left. Italian celebrity chef Lidia Bastianich is promoting her latest cookbook, chatting with Jones’ colleague Carson Daly. 

The cameras swing back to Jones and her co-hosts, who are seated at a high-top table. Plates are set with Bastianich’s famous eggplant rollatini. The anchors eat the smallest morsels possible. Banter. Make appreciative noises. Somehow avoid dripping sauce. Then, time’s up — and Jones heads upstairs for a segment with ballerina Misty Copeland. Let’s go. 

By 10 a.m., Jones ’00 has changed on-air locations no less than four times before she finally ditches her heels, slips on some flats and catches the elevator up to the third floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where she pauses, at last, for a breather in her impeccably organized office, decorated in soft shades of white. Displayed prominently is her Medill Hall of Achievement Award and a framed selfie of Jones with Oprah Winfrey. 

“Alright,” she says, leaning into her chair. “Let’s just dig in.” 

Where to begin? There’s raising three talented children with her husband, Uche Ojeh ’01 (see “Let Love Be Your [Tour] Guide” below), training for the New York City Marathon, writing a book on advice from celebrity moms, maintaining friendships and expertly managing a high-voltage career. 

As one of a handful of Black women helming a national TV broadcast, Jones thinks it’s important for people to see her full self: accomplished, Black, a woman, a mother, a daughter, a wife, a volunteer, a pray-er, a proud Midwesterner — a human who embraces joy, who sometimes falters, sometimes loses her nerve … but persists nonetheless. 

“The Sheinelle you see on the Today show is the same entertaining, funny and compassionate person we all know off-air too,” says her former Weekend Today co-anchor Peter Alexander ’98, who first met Jones while both were students at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. “Sheinelle is one of those people you just want to be friends with, and I proudly say that as a friend of hers.” 

She keeps it real. And that’s a big reason so many viewers love her. 

“You feel like you know Sheinelle,” says Roker. “She is your sister, your friend. … She says the things or asks the questions you would want to ask.” 

In her work on Today and beyond, Jones has never been afraid to ask tough questions or break the silence on taboo topics. Inspired by her friends’ experiences with infertility, she executive-produced the 2021 documentary Stories We Tell: The Fertility Secret (with director and co–executive producer Andre Gaines ’01). The film spotlighted the issue and its impact on women of color, and Jones centered them unapologetically. She has also publicly addressed wearing her natural hair on TV. Her decision to go public with the hair care needs of, and expectations imposed on, Black women helped educate and empower viewers — and helped bolster the CROWN (Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) Act. Twenty-four states have now enacted some version of the law, which makes it illegal to discriminate against someone based upon their hair texture. 

“I’m trying to use this chair to make things better,” Jones says, “for myself and for others.”

From left, Today co-hosts Al Roker, Sheinelle Jones, Craig Melvin and Dylan Dreyer. Photo Credit: Nathan Congleton/NBC

STEP 1: VISUALIZE IT 

If you ask Jones the secret to her success, she answers with a story. “I grew up surrounded by the power of intentionality,” she explains, recalling her childhood in Wichita, Kan. At home, her mother would post inspirational quotes everywhere: the kitchen, the living room, you name it. It’s part of a matriarchal mindset, Jones says, passed down by her grandmother to her mother and now to her: a blend of affirmations, imagery and probing questions to guide the next generation down a path of success. 

“There were quotes in my bathroom when I was in eighth grade, [like] ‘If you can see it, you can be it,’” says Jones, who also kept a small jewelry box full of Post-it notes with her favorite quotes. Her bedroom walls became a vision board, covered with images of pop star Janet Jackson and TV news anchors, including hometown legend KWCH 12 anchor Cindy Klose. When Jones spoke at the Medill convocation in 2018, she shared the power of seeing “those words, those affirmations day in and day out. ... I visualized myself in a black-and-white glossy headshot right along with those anchors on my wall until, essentially, it became my reality.”