Jericka Duncan, Adriana Diaz Will Anchor ‘CBS Weekend News’
National correspondents Jericka Duncan and Adriana Diaz will take over as anchors of “CBS Weekend News,” the ViacomCBS unit said Friday, setting in place a more formalized structure for the weekend evening-news broadcast after its logistics were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Diaz will anchor the Saturday broadcast from Chicago and Duncan will anchor Sundays from New York.
Duncan will anchor the “CBS Weekend News” on Sunday, Dec. 6, while Diaz will start on December 12 from CBS News’ bureau in Chicago, located at WBBM, a Chicago station owned and operated by the network. Both anchors will assume their permanent timeslots in January.
“Jericka Duncan and Adriana Diaz are outstanding journalists with extensive reporting experience,” said Susan Zirinsky, president of CBS News, in a statement. “Adriana’s reporting has spanned China, North Korea and Latin America to today’s coverage of COVID-19’s devastating impact on the nation. Jericka has distinguished herself in reporting the toughest, highest-profile stories that have hit the courts and gripped the country including the trials of Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and Breonna Taylor.”
Weekend news has become a trickier prospect at many of the broadcast networks, which often delay or even pre-empt the shows in favor of sports telecasts. Keeping regular anchors at the ready for weekend work has been tougher for CBS News in recent months. The onset of the coronavirus pandemic kept personnel from broadcasting from the unit’s New York headquarters, and current rules on the number of people allowed to assemble there mean some restrictions continue. In recent weeks, CBS’ weekend broadcasts have been handled by a rotating group of anchors from facilities around the nation.
Weekend evening-news duties had been handled by anchors who worked primarily for CBSN, the company’s streaming-video news outlet, and some of the story packages used had also appeared for broadband users earlier in the day. CBS in 2016 went so far as to remove the venerable “CBS Evening News” moniker from the weekend broadcasts , which were retooled partially in an effort to cut costs. Reena Ninan and Elaine Quijano had been anchoring the program on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
“n this 24/7 news cycle, we are thrilled to have such strong journalists leading the ‘CBS Weekend News’,” said Kim Godwin, CBS News’ executive vice president of news, in a statement. “Duncan and Diaz will continue to enhance CBS News’ coverage of the most important stories of our time.”
Duncan joined CBS News in 2013 and has tackled a wide array of assignment, including the White House. Before joining CBS News, Duncan spent three years at KYW, the CBS-owned TV station in Philadelphia. Before that, she was a reporter for WIVB (CBS) in Buffalo, New York. She started off as a reporter in Elmira, New York shortly after graduating from Ohio University in 2005 with a degree in communications. She recently received a Juris Master in American Legal Studies from Liberty University.
Diaz joined CBS News in 2012, and has covered the effects of the coronavirus pandemic in Wisconsin and gun violence in Chicago and Parkland, Florida, among other assignments. Prior to joining CBS News, Diaz reported for Channel One News and hosted Yahoo’s “Trending Now” web show. She has also worked as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs. She attended Princeton University, majoring in public and international affairs and earned a master’s degree in public affairs and public administration at Columbia University and France’s Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris.
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