Born as Elizabeth Penny Comm, Daniels is a native of Highland Park, Illinois. She earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1977 and a Master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from Northwestern University in 1980.

Daniels began her career in 1980 at the CBS affiliate in Green Bay Wisconsin, then moved to Buffalo, New York to report and anchor newscasts at WKBW-TV, the ABC affiliate. From there she moved to Washington, D.C., where she was a reporter and fill-in anchor at WJLA-TV, the ABC station from 1985-1988. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Daniels was an anchor at WSVN-TV in Miami, where she was the first woman to solo anchor a nationally-syndicated, tabloid-style magazine program. Inside Story only ran from 1989-1990, but was hugely popular in Miami, beating the famous “A Current Affair” (then-anchored by Maury Povich) in local ratings. Shortly before leaving WSVN, Daniels was caught on the air telling a producer “You suck!” “I’m sorry I said it,” Daniels later said, according to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times on March 22, 1993. “I don’t usually lose my temper when I’m doing a newscast.”

In April 1993, Daniels joined WBBM-TV in Chicago, Illinois as an anchor and reporter. In mid-1993, Daniels and Joan Lovett began anchoring the station’s new noon newscast.

In September 1994, Daniels left WBBM to join A Current Affair as a New York-based weekday host. She hosted the show until September 1995, when she shifted to being a correspondent for the program’s weekday editions and the anchor of the show’s weekend edition. The show went off the air in 1996.

In 1998, Daniels joined KHQ-TV in Spokane, Washington. In October 2000, Daniels abruptly resigned from KHQ and left the TV news business to work as a communications consultant and trainer in Washington, D.C.

In 2003, Daniels and two partners created the communications consulting and coaching firm, 3D Communications, with offices located across the country.[5]