KMPH TV reporter leaves Central Valley to return home: ‘I want to make clear, I love Fresno.’

During the pandemic, Marie Edinger didn’t see her family for a full year.

That was understandable, what with Edinger being from Florida, originally, but living and working in Fresno as a multimedia reporter and anchor at KMPH FOX 26. But it became a bit much and now Edinger is returning to Florida to be closer to her family.

“I know people kind of make fun of Fresno all of the time. I want to make clear, I love Fresno. I love the Central Valley. I would stay here forever were it not going home to be with family,” Edinger said in a goodbye segment during the Great Day newscast on Thursday.

It was her final day with the news channel.

Edinger came to KMPH in 2018 after spending two years at a station in Jackson, Mississippi. During her time in Fresno, Edinger reported on the pandemic and California’s wildfires and said she’s met “people on their best day and unfortunately more often on their worst. She won two Edward R. Murrow awards while at the station, including one for a story in which she took a ride-along flight with a pilot from the Blue Angels aviation team.

“Turns out, for this one, all I had to do to throw up and pass out on TV,” Edinger said of the story, which she called her “very favorite.”

Edinger’s next gig will be at FOX 35 Orlando.