In addition to her duties for the newsmagazine, James also serves as a substitute co-anchor and substitute newsreader on NBC News' "Today" and on MSNBC.

Prior to her present assignment, James served as national correspondent for "NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw" from January 1994. She reported on the U.S. mission to Somalia; her coverage of the starvation and fighting took her deep into the countryside before the arrival of the U.S. Marines. James also traveled to Haiti, in the tumultuous days of the Cedras regime, where she reported on the killing squads that terrorized the local populace. James joined NBC News as a general correspondent based in New York in November 1992. Before that, she served as the first anchor of "NBC Nightside", the overnight affiliate service produced by the NBC News Channel in Charlotte, N.C. since November 1991.

From 1986 through 1991, she was the weeknight co-anchor at WBTV in Charlotte, where her coverage of Operation Desert Shield in the Gulf earned her a regional Emmy. Prior to that, she worked at WWBT in Richmond, Va. from 1984 until 1986, and from 1983 to 1984 at WTVA in Tupelo, Miss.

James is a graduate of the University of Virginia. She was born in Durham, N.C. and raised in Richmond, Va.