Brandi Kruse is an investigative reporter for KIRO Radio, the CBS Radio affiliate in Seattle, Wash. She has helped break such stories as the trend of undercooked meat at Burger King restaurants, and was the first American reporter to travel to Central America to interview Jason Puracal, a U.S. citizen who was wrongly imprisoned in Nicaragua.
Kruse is a three-time Murrow award-winning journalist in radio for her work on the Burger King story, the Puracal case and the Port of Seattle Occupy protests in December 2011.
A 2010 graduate of broadcast journalism at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, she was honored at the Hearst Journalism Awards as the top radio news student in the country. Before coming to KIRO-FM, Kruse worked for CBS News in New York City on video elements of CBSnews.com, then for the affiliate news service of ABC News Radio.
Prior to CBS, she worked for ABC News as an on-campus reporter. During her year with ABC, her work was featured on the World News Webcast with Charles Gibson, NewsOne, World News Now, ABCNews.com and Yahoo!.
Kruse began her career in news at Lincoln, Neb., radio station KFOR. While there, her evening newscast was twice awarded “Best Newscast” by the Associated Press and the Nebraska Broadcasters Association. She also received a Nebraska Broadcasters Association Award of Excellence in “Best Investigative Reporting” for a story that helped investigators track down a dangerous sex offender on the run.
She has also worked with the news and public affairs unit at NET Television on several political and social documentaries including an in-depth look at Nebraska’s candidates for U.S. Senate.
Kruse grew up in lakes country outside of Glyndon, a small town in northwestern Minnesota. She graduated from Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton High School in 2006. When she’s not at work, you can probably find her at your local sushi restaurant or hiking one of the Pacific Northwest’s amazing trails!
