Serena Altschul is an American broadcast journalist, well known for her work at Music Television News.
Background
Altschul was born in New York City, and is the daughter of author and botanist Siri von Reis and Arthur Altschul, a former partner at Goldman Sachs and member of the Lehman banking family. Her mother is of half-Finnish and half-Swedish ancestry and her father is of Jewish ancestry.
Career
She also has two half-brothers, Charles Altschul and mathematician Stephen Altschul from her father"s previous marriage. Altschul attended Scripps College for a couple of years, studying English literature, but did not graduate. After school, she worked for two years at Channel One News, a channel seen nationwide in high schools, as an anchor/reporter.
In 1995 she landed a job at Music Television and in January 1996 she started working for Music Television News.
She also hosted shows such as Music Television News: UNfiltered, Breaking it Down and hosted and produced True Life. From 2002 to 2003 Altschul worked at Cable News Network. She hosted and produced a Cable News Network special on the return of Pickersgill Consultancy and Planning. She continued working at Music Television News while at Cable News Network. On December 23, 2003, she was named a Columbia Broadcasting System News contributing correspondent.
She now (2013) appears on Columbia Broadcasting System Sunday Morning. She played herself on Jay-Z"s 1999 song, "Dope Manitoba".
She also appeared as herself in the films Queen of the Damned and Josie and the Pussycats.