Susan Roesgen is the daughter of William Roesgen, former publisher of several newspapers and editor of the Billings Gazette, and sister to Andy Roesgen, a freelance television reporter. Roesgen graduated magna cum laude from Montana State University in 1983, majoring in English Literature. Roesgen says she "never planned to be in journalism. I thought I'd be some kind of writer, but not in the media." She started as a copyeditor for the MSU Exponent newspaper, and her first television job was writing commercials. She eventually joined the news department, and worked her way up to anchoring the news at WABC-TV in New York City.