Originally posted Thursday, April 25, 2019 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
After four years at CBS46 as an evening anchor, Sharon Reed announced to staff today that she's leaving when her contract is up next month.
She broke the news to staff at 2:30 p.m. but did not specify what her new opportunity is going to be.
"In the last few months, some exciting projects have come up that require my full-time attention to explore," she said in a press release, without details. "In the television business, timing is critical and this is the time for me to make this move."
In a Facebook post later in the day, Reed said, “I’ve loved doing this job for the past four years. I hope you could see my passion every single day. This was no easy decision.”
Reed has been a dominant - and sometimes polarizing - force in the CBS46 newsroom and was never afraid to express her opinion. In late 2017, when she received an email from a viewer who used the N-word, she used the airwaves to clap back. As a result, she received national headlines.
She helped start the 9 p.m. newscast on Peachtree TV in 2017 and covered the Super Bowl this past February.
Reed addressed rumors in 2017 with radio host Ryan Cameron that she had a baby with LeBron James while working in Cleveland years ago. She denied it. (The current CBS46 news director Steve Doerr worked with her at a station in Cleveland.)
But she didn’t shy away from owning her Type A reputation at work.
"Professionally, I want everything you've got and more," Reed told Cameron when he was at V-103. "I want everything my male counterpart has and then some. I want to be everything. I want to make the most money. I want the most success. I want it all. Very alpha."
A former CBS46 executive producer CB Hackworth - who has worked with John Pruitt and Monica Pearson - is a fan. "She is one of the most dynamic forces in television I've met and a close friend. She is driven by professionalism. She doesn't suffer fools gladly. If she's critical of someone or something, she'll tell them. Some people get their feelings hurt and some people need to. She argued with me all the time but I don't know why."
He said she was brought in to be the face of a new CBS46 but “many people don’t appreciate what that entails. She’s a remarkable journalist, a fierce and loyal friend and a fantastic mother to one of the sweetest girls you could meet.”
Her final day on air will be Wednesday, May 22.
Doerr said her pending departure was not a surprise.
“We’ve been working collaboratively with Sharon and her team for several weeks. She wants to make sure we have plenty of time to plan ahead,” he said.
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