Posted by chicagomedia.org on August 06, 2008 at 07:45:55:
Jeff Goldblatt, a Chicago-based correspondent for Fox News Channel, has emerged as the odds-on choice to become Robin Robinson's new co-anchor on Fox-owned WFLD-Ch. 32's 9 p.m. news.
Sources close to the situation say negotiations are in the final stages, and Goldblatt is expected to make his on-air debut in around two weeks, ostensibly replacing Mark Suppelsa, who joined Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.'s WGN-Ch. 9 last month after quitting Channel 32 in March.
WFLD boss Pat Mullen declined to comment.
Goldblatt was unavailable at deadline, as was a spokeswoman for Fox News Channel, which is believed to be eyeing Carina Sonn as Goldblatt's replacement in the Chicago bureau.
Sonn, a morning news reporter for Griffin Communications' CBS affiliate KOTV-TV and CW affiliate KQCW-TV in Tulsa, Okla., also could not be reached.
David Novarro, who has been doubling up on WFLD's 9 p.m. show in Suppelsa's absence, will go back to co-anchoring only the station's 10 p.m. broadcast.
Goldblatt, who has been with Fox News Channel since 1999, anchored FNC's coverage of the death of President Gerald Ford and spent more than two months in New Orleans covering Hurricane Katrina and its effects. FNC also has sent him to report from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other global hot spots.
Fox News plucked Goldblatt from NBC-owned WTVJ-TV in Miami. He previously was the chief investigative correspondent for the nationally syndicated "American Journal" program, was a Washington correspondent for Belo Broadcasting, and worked at stations in Richmond, Va., and Wilmington, N.C.
(Rosenthal)