News department history
WGN-TV has been well known in the Chicago area for its news programming which, through its former co-ownership with Chicago Tribune, has played an important role since its launch. The WGN-TV news department has long been one of the most-respected local television news operations in the U.S. and has won several journalism awards, including Emmy, Associated Press, United Press International, and duPont-Columbia Awards. The station's pool of news anchors and reporters has including Jack Taylor (1954–1984),[236] Carl Greyson (1955–1980),[237] Marty McNeeley (1969–1986),[238] Robert Jordan (1973–1978 and 1980–2016), Muriel Clair (1978–present),[239] Dan Roan (1984–2022),[240] and Steve Sanders (1982–2020).[241] WGN's news department shared operations and management with WGN Radio until 1983, when the news division was split into separate departments maintained by the respective properties.
WGN-TV's news department began operations on April 5, 1948, with the launch of its first regular news program, Chicagoland Newsreel, which was Chicago's first television newscast to consist entirely of filmed coverage. The 15-minute broadcast originally aired weeknights at 6:45 p.m., and a midday edition at 11:30 a.m. was added in September 1949. The program was anchored by news director Spencer Allen, who had been a reporter and news writer for WGN Radio since 1938. It had a large staff of photographers and technicians, many of whom had worked for the Tribune. Allen also anchored a 15-minute midday news program, Spencer Allen and the News, from 1951 to 1953.[242]
From 1948 to 1965, WGN-TV produced an additional 15-minute-long newscast at 6:30 p.m.; this was presented by Austin Kiplinger, who was replaced in 1953 by Allen and then by Lloyd Pettit in 1956. The anchor read the news summary and Frann Weigel was the weather anchor. The program was expanded to a half-hour in September 1955, when Newsreel was discontinued in favor of an amended sports-news segment that was anchored by Vince Lloyd. Under Allen's leadership, WGN-TV's newscasts evolved from a "police blotter/fire alarm-type of news operation" to incorporating more in-depth and investigative reports. WGN-TV was the first Chicago television station to televise a local appearance by a U.S. President during Harry S. Truman's 1948 visit to Chicago. The station also provided mobile coverage of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's visit to the city in April 1951. It has also provided coverage of the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions each election cycle since 1952, and extensive pool coverage of Pope John Paul II's Mass at Grant Park in 1979.
In September 1951, WGN-TV began carrying a 15-minute, late-night edition of Chicagoland Newsreel that followed its late-evening movie presentations. By 1967, the program had evolved into Night Beat, a 30-minute overnight newscast in which the main anchor, which included Greyson, McNeeley, Cliff Mercer, and Jack Taylor, presented a summary of local and world news headlines, and a brief weather-forecast summary. Night Beat was discontinued in 1983. In February 1955, the station installed a coaxial cable link from the city room of the Chicago Tribune (originally done for the early newscast, First Edition, which aired from 1954 to 1956) to allow Tribune reporters and contributors to comment on developing stories being covered by the newspaper and the WGN news department.[243] After WGN-TV became an independent station in August 1956, the evening newscast was moved to 7 p.m., becoming the market's first prime time newscast and was often canceled or postponed due to sports coverage. The evening newscast was moved to 10 p.m. in September 1959, originally under the title 10th Hour News, and later as The Park-Ruddle News and [Jack Taylor/John Drury and] NewsNine. In May 1960, the late newscast, which by that point was anchored by Jim Conway, became the first local-television news program in the U.S. to expand to a half-hour broadcast. Standard news updates, which were presented by on-staff anchors under the title WGN Newsbreak, also ran during the late morning, early afternoon, and prime time hours in-between programs.[244]
In 1965, WGN-TV appointed the first dual-anchor team in Chicago television news; the team consisted of Gary Park, previously of KCRA-TV in Sacramento, and Jim Ruddle, who previously worked at WTVT in Tampa; they presented evening newscasts. On January 9, 1967, WGN-TV shifted the 10 p.m. edition of the newscast by 15 minutes and reduced it to that length in an attempt to improve viewership by placing the telephone quiz show The Name Game in the timeslot, reducing competition with late newscasts on WLS-TV, WMAQ-TV, and WBBM-TV. This experiment ended in May 1967, when WGN-TV reverted the late newscast timeslot to 10 p.m. and expanded it to 25 minutes. In June 1967, Ruddle left to join NBC-owned WMAQ-TV, to be followed two years later by Park taking a prime time anchor role at KTVU in San Francisco.[245][246][247] Also in 1965, WGN premiered its first morning news show Top 'o' the Morning; Orion Samuelson—then a farm reporter for WGN Radio, who would eventually host the syndicated U.S. Farm Report from 1975—and Harold Turner (later replaced by Max Armstrong) provided agricultural news and weather. The program was replaced in May 1984 by a traditional morning newscast, Chicago's First Report, which was canceled due to low viewership that December.
John Drury joined WGN-TV in 1967, and worked for three years as anchor of its 10 p.m. news and occasionally of Night Beat. After working for WLS-TV for nine years, Drury returned to WGN-TV in 1979, displacing Jack Taylor as 10 p.m. NewsNine anchor. During his second stint at WGN-TV, Drury took on an expanded role doing assignments and investigative reporting, often producing the reports with investigative reporter Alex Burkholder. In 1982, Chicago mayor Jane Byrne, accompanied by members of her public relations and cabinet staff, tried to persuade Drury to shelve a report on Byrne's use of public funds for city festivals designed to promote her administration in relation to her stint residing in the Cabrini-Green housing project. Drury persisted with the report, which aided in Byrne's loss to Harold Washington in the 1983 Democratic mayoral primary and helped earn Drury a Chicago Emmy Award for Individual Excellence—the first of four Emmys during his career.[248][249]
Another mainstay of WGN-TV was Tom Skilling, who joined in August 1978 to succeed weather reporter Harry Volkman (1967–1970 and 1974–mid-1978) as the station's main evening meteorologist. Skilling—who was rumored to have been the highest paid local-television meteorologist in the U.S.—became known for presenting his forecasts with detailed but easy-to-understand analysis and accuracy—most notably his predictions of the Groundhog Day blizzard two weeks before it hit the Chicago area in late January and early February 2011. Skilling made routine use of computer models to illustrate forecasts. Skilling also occasionally hosted half-hour documentary specials explaining extreme weather phenomena and advancements in forecasting technology. Skilling earned several Chicago Emmy nominations and awards. He also presented a weekly feature on the 9 p.m. newscast, Ask Tom Why, in which he answered viewer-submitted weather questions. Under Skilling, WGN-TV centralized its weather operations to include WGN-TV, WGN Radio, CLTV, and the Tribune. In May 2007, the station became a broadcast partner in the automated weather observation network WeatherBug, the largest station member by market size. Skilling holds the record as the longest-serving television meteorologist at a single station in the Chicago market, having served as chief meteorologist at WGN-TV for 45 years until he retired from broadcasting on February 28, 2024.[250][251][252][253]
The late newscast was moved into prime time on March 10, 1980, becoming known as The Nine O'Clock News and from May 1993 as WGN News at Nine, as part of a uniform retitling of its newscasts under the WGN News moniker used since 1981. The shift to the 9 p.m. hour briefly made it the first hour-long prime time newscast in the Midwest and, for its first seven years, it was the Chicago market's only 9 p.m. local television newscast. Initially airing five nights a week, the revamped weeknight-only newscast was first anchored by Drury, Skilling, sports anchor Bill Frink, and commentator Len O'Connor. On June 9 of that year, the program switched to a hybrid local–national format that incorporated Independent Network News (INN)—a Tribune-syndicated nightly news program that was later retitled INN: The Independent News in September 1984 and USA Tonight in January 1987, originating from New York sister station WPIX. This replaced the locally produced segments that had occupied the 9:30 p.m. half-hour since the March format change. After briefly being confined to weeknights following the rescheduling, half-hour weekend editions of the 9 p.m. broadcast were added on October 4, 1980, anchored originally by Larry Roderick and Robert Jordan.[256][257][258][259][260][261]
Since the reformatting as a prime time newscast, WGN-TV has been the ratings leader in the 9 p.m. timeslot, and typically holds a larger audience than the 10 p.m. newscast on WBBM-TV. The 9 p.m. newscast's dominance was such that from 1984 until 1989, when it was unseated by KTVU in San Francisco, it had the largest viewership of any prime time local newscast in the United States. Competition for The Nine O'Clock News arrived on November 16, 1987, when Fox O&O WFLD debuted an hour-long 9 p.m. broadcast.[263][264][265] Although WFLD aggressively marketed its newscast towards younger audiences as having a fresher style than WGN-TV's more traditional news format, WGN-TV has remained Chicago's top-rated 9 p.m. newscast to the present day, even with the WFLD newscast having the Fox prime time lineup as its lead-in. For this reason, WFLD moved its newscast back to its original 7 p.m. timeslot in September 1988, only to return it to 9 p.m. the following year to accommodate the planned expansion of Fox's prime time lineup. A sports highlight and interview program, Instant Replay, which was hosted by sports director Dan Roan until his retirement in May 2022, began accompanying the newscast's Sunday edition in August 1987. WGN-TV re-expanded its prime time newscast to one hour on June 4, 1990, after Tribune discontinued production of USA Tonight under a contract between Tribune and Turner Broadcasting in which Tribune stations were granted access to CNN Newsource content and began feeding video footage to the CNN video wire service.[266]
WGN began programming long-form news outside its established 9 p.m. slot on September 19, 1983, when it debuted Midday Newscope, which grew out of the three-minute-long local news segments that had aired during the INN Midday Edition since January 1983. Originally anchored by Rick Rosenthal, who was replaced in 1984 by Steve Sanders, the newscast—a local version of Telepictures and Gannett Broadcasting's short-lived syndicated format, Newscope—included local news headlines, weather forecasts, and in-depth consumer, financial, entertainment, and lifestyle features. The program was reformatted into a more traditional newscast and retitled Chicago's Midday News on September 17, 1984, and was expanded to an hour in September 1985.[263][269][270][271] The midday newscast was concurrently rebranded from WGN News at Noon to WGN Midday News with the expansion and eventually expanded to 90 minutes, moving to an 11:30 a.m. start, on September 15, 2008. WGN Midday News was expanded to two hours, moving to 11 a.m., on October 5, 2009.[272][273]
On January 25, 1992, the station debuted hour-long 8 a.m. newscasts on Saturdays and Sundays. To accommodate the launch of Chicago's Weekend Morning News, and the concurring moves of Charlando and People to People to Sundays, WGN-TV dropped the long-running religious programs What's Nu, Heritage of Faith, and Mass for Shut-ins from its Sunday morning lineup; the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago and other religious groups criticized this move on grounds that the programs catered to diverse religious audiences in fulfillment of the station's public-service obligations. The Sunday edition was discontinued after the September 4, 1994, broadcast; the Saturday edition followed suit on December 19, 1998; news director Steve Ramsey cited the need to provide more resources for weekday morning newscasts. Weekend morning newscasts returned on October 2, 2010, with the debut of hour-long editions at 6 a.m. that shifted to a two-hour block at 7 a.m. on September 10, 2016, following WGN-TV's disaffiliation from The CW, and expanded to a third hour on Saturdays until 10 a.m. on January 11, 2020.[275][276][277][278][279][165]
Morning news programming was extended to weekdays on September 6, 1994, with the WGN Morning News debuting from 7 to 8 a.m.; it was originally anchored by Dave Eckert, Sonja Gantt, and meteorologist Paul Huttner. To improve viewership, the program—which replaced children's programs that had previously aired at that time—was soon reformatted to feature a mix of straight news and entertainment, and lifestyle features, in a looser style similar to that of morning radio programs. This reformatting helped Morning News to eventually begin out-competing local and national morning news programs—including its closest initial competitor, WFLD's Fox Thing in the Morning (now Good Day Chicago)—in the 25–54 age demographic and in total viewers. The program was expanded to two hours, extending until 9 a.m., on January 8, 1996, with a later hour-long expansion [to 10 a.m.] on September 3, 2013. An hour-long 6 a.m. Early Edition of the newscast debuted on August 5, 1996; this newscast gradually expanded to three hours, beginning with the addition of a 5:30 a.m. half-hour in January 2001 and ending with its July 11, 2011, extension to 4 a.m.[280][281][282][283] WGN Morning News became the first WGN-TV newscast to be denied clearance on the national feed in September 1996, due to self-imposed exclusivity restrictions concerning paid segments and rate charges the station's sales department would have to pay if the segments aired nationally. Simulcasts of the WGN Morning News temporarily returned to WGN America on February 3, 2014, when it began airing the 4 a.m. hour.
In July 1996, WGN-TV began using a Eurocopter AS350 B2 helicopter for news gathering; the aircraft was known as "Skycam 9", and was used for breaking news events and traffic reporting.[284] In October 1999, freelance reporter Jane Boal made headlines when she was hit from behind by a car; Boal suffered cartilage and ligament injuries to both of her legs after being pinned between the car involved in the accident and a WGN live truck, but was able to resume work in early November.[285][286][287] In 2000, WGN-TV constructed a new 26,000 sqft newsroom covering two floors on the eastern portion of its studio facility, increasing the building's size to approximately 131,000 sqft. The original newsroom was renovated for use by the station's weather department.[288][289]
In April 2008, WGN-TV persuaded veteran WMAQ-TV and WFLD anchor Mark Suppelsa—who turned down a contract with the latter station due to a proposed salary cut—to take over as lead anchor of the 9 p.m. newscast, replacing Steve Sanders. Suppelsa co-anchored the weeknight newscasts until his retirement from broadcasting in December 2017, and was replaced two months later by Joe Donlon, who served a similar role at KGW in Portland, Oregon.[290][274][291] On July 19, 2008, beginning with that night's edition of the 9 p.m. newscast, WGN-TV became the third television station in Chicago to broadcast local newscasts in high definition. Video from remote and field equipment was initially broadcast in 480p standard definition following the transition; HD cameras began to be used for field reports in July 2010, making WGN-TV the first station in the city to broadcast all locally originated news content in HD.
Starting under the direction of news director Greg Caputo, WGN-TV expanded its news programming and launched an early-evening newscast on September 15, 2008, WGN Evening News, which began as a half-hour weeknight broadcast at 5:30 p.m.[272][273] The newscast expanded to one hour, starting at 5 p.m., on October 5, 2009, and Saturday and Sunday editions were added on July 12, 2014.[274][292] The weekday editions of the newscast were later expanded to a second hour starting at 4 p.m. on September 8, 2014, and then to three hours on April 4, 2017.[293][294][295][296]
On October 5, 2015, the station restored a 10 p.m. newscast—originally airing Monday through Friday—after a 35-year absence; weekend editions of the 10 p.m. broadcast were added on January 11, 2020.[298][299][165] A secondary, live, sports-news show, GN Sports, premiered on January 28, 2020, as the lead-out program for the weeknight 10 p.m. newscasts. GN Sports was originally co-hosted by Dan Roan and Jarrett Payton, and focuses on sports news and highlights, feature segments and in-studio interviews in a format similar to Instant Replay, and sports gaming and fantasy sports analysis.[233][300][301] Weekend editions of GN Sports were added on August 14, 2021, with the Sunday broadcast replacing the cuisine-and-tourism program Chicago's Best, which had aired on WGN-TV from January 2011 until August 8, 2021.[302]
