Melissa Stokes

Melissa Tania Stokes (born 1978 or 1979^[1]) is a New Zealand television newsreader and reporter. She is the newsreader of 1News during the weekends.

Stokes grew up in Tauranga.^[1] Her first job was working at the deli section of a New World supermarket.^[2] Her parents ran fabric shops and she worked for them as a teenager. At age 16, she and her family moved to Christchurch, where she finished high school and attended broadcasting school. Her uncle, Spencer Jolly, was a TVNZ journalist during Robert Muldoon's term as prime minister, and later worked for Channel 9 in Brisbane. Because of this, as a teenager Stokes visited the channel's studio. She has said her uncle partly inspired her to work in television.^[1]

Stokes began working for TVNZ in 2001, as a reporter for the morning news programme Breakfast.^[1] Between 2006 and 2008, she was the TVNZ Europe correspondent.^[3] In December 2018 it was announced that Stokes would replace Peter Williams to become the 1News at 6pm newsreader during the weekends.^[4] On the same day of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Stokes travelled to the United Kingdom as a presenter for TVNZ's rolling coverage of the event.^[3]

Stokes is married to Dave Pierce, a cameraman,^[5] and they have two children.^[1] Her mother chose to die by euthanasia after having cancer for about seven years.^[6]