Michael Konopasek is an anchor and reporter at FOX31 Denver and Colorado’s Own Channel 2 News. He anchors Daybreak on Sunday mornings from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and reports weekday afternoons and evenings.
He is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who arrived in Denver in August of 2016. Before calling Denver home, Michael was a reporter at NBC affiliate KING-TV in Seattle and CBS affiliate KWTV-TV in Oklahoma City.
Michael’s work as a journalist has affected change in people’s lives. While in Colorado, his reporting prompted state leaders to commit to a public dialogue on establishing best practices for AMBER Alerts following a delayed alert in 2017.
In the same year, the Denver Police Department credited Michael for bringing the Safe Place program to its attention. His coverage of the anti-hate crime initiative in Seattle led to the adoption of a Safe Place program in Denver.
He has covered news that has attracted national and international attention, including his gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Taylor Swift sex assault trial in 2017 and what was Washington state’s largest wildfire in 2014.
Michael also served as a TEGNA correspondent— reporting for television stations across the country— during the 2015 Umpqua Community College shooting in Roseburg, Oregon.
Michael was part of Edward R. Murrow Award-winning coverage of the 2014 Marysville Pilchuck High School shooting near Seattle. A year earlier, he reported live from the heart of the deadly Moore, Oklahoma tornado destruction path moments after the EF5 twister devastated the area.
His coverage of the tragedy was honored with a regional Emmy Award in 2014. Michael was awarded a second Emmy Award in 2018 for his coverage of a deadly ambush of sheriff’s deputies in suburban Denver.
In his free time, Michael volunteers with Healthy Learning Paths— a nonprofit organization that provides affordable health education for children across Colorado. He emcees the group’s annual “Race 4Kids’ Health” in Broomfield.
Michael is originally from the Northwest Indiana suburbs of Chicago and is a former Chicago double-decker bus tour guide.
He is a proud graduate of Ball State University. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in telecommunications and a minor in political science. While studying at Ball State, Michael served as an intern for the United States Congress and Chicago’s ABC-owned WLS-TV.
He loves cycling, history, politics and traveling. His journeys– for both work and pleasure– have taken him to all 50 states and several countries.
In 2018, Michael was part of a journalism fellowship allowing him to report from the Korean Demilitarized Zone amid international efforts to rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons.
