Originally posted Wednesday, July 4, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Former CNN Headline News anchor and reporter Thomas Roberts is returning to Atlanta after more than a decade away to become an evening anchor at CBS46.
Roberts spent most of the past decade in New York at MSNBC in various capacities but left last November.
He will replace Ben Swann, who was fired by CBS46 in January for working on a Reality Check/Truth in Media side project without the network's permission. Swann's penchant for conspiracy theories did not sit well with management.
At CBS46 (WGCL-TV), Roberts will work alongside Sharon Reed.
Roberts is an impressive get for a station that has struggled for years to gain ratings traction or maintain consistent staffing or management.
I am not sure what Roberts' start date is but it should be sometime this month. CBS46 news director Steve Doerr declined to comment but the news leaked out to FTVLive this week. I was able to confirm the move from multiple sources.
Roberts started his career in broadcast TV news in markets such as San Diego, Lincoln, Neb., Fort Myers, Fla. and Hampton Roads, Va. before joining CNN in 2001.
He was a weekday co-anchor at CNN Headline News based in Atlanta for several years. He left in 2007. For a time, he did work for “Entertainment Tonight” and “The Insider” as well as CBS News.
Roberts joined MSNBC in 2010. While at MSNBC, he also did correspondence work for NBC News and filled in as a host of the “Today” show and NBC Nightly News.
The Maryland native won an Emmy for his coverage of the Supreme Court decision to accept gay marriage in 2015. Before Rachel Maddow, Shepard Smith, Don Lemon and Anderson Cooper, Roberts was the first major openly gay news anchor when he came out in 2006 while at CNN.
Roberts hosted a weekday show for MSNBC from 2015 to the end of 2016. For most of 2017, he worked a weekend shift.
Swann, by the way, has been running his Truth in Media website for several months but hasn't had an updated report since the end of May. He did post this on his Twitter on Monday:
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