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A familiar look about the new TV face in town

A familiar look about the new TV face in town Tony Ballew, WJW Channel 8's news director, introduced his new anchor to the rest of the staff simply as "Robin." "I wasn't sure which last name she was going to use," he said. "I'd be less than honest if I said I didn't lobby for her real name." Channel 8 executives think Robin Swoboda - her real name - will play well in an ethnic town like Cleveland. For the last three years, however, Robin Swoboda has been Robin Cole. In 1983, when she was hired at a TV station in Moline, Ill., the news direc"tor told her Swoboda didn't have the right sound. He wanted something plain. Something average. Something Waspy. She suggested Kennedy. He told her it sounded too Democratic. "I love Cleveland already," she Ballew. "We hired her said flies. "'The other night I had this "That's an oversimplification," said. "I love living in a place where I because she's nightmare," she said. "I opened my gas and good... . She's a natural in front of the mouth and the words wouldn't come can pump my then pay." camera.' out." : "Then I thought I'd pick a name that meant something,"' she recalled. "My grandmother's name was Smith. Too plain. My great grandmother's name was Hussey. Imagine that one: 'And here now the news from Robin Hussey.'" • Swoboda breaks into a deep, hearty laugh. It's eerie. Not only does this woman look like former anchor Tana Carli, she kind of sounds like her, too. Cole, she explains, came from a kohl pencil she was using to line her eyes. "My agent, bless her heart, told me to say it's an old family name, but I couldn't do that." The most striking thing about Robin Swoboda is her sense of humor. And she has a whole routine about Miami, where she worked at WTVJ (John Hambrick's current station) since - leaving Moline last February. MARIA RICCARDI -• - TELEVISION Swoboda is funny, down-to-earth and doesn't seem to take herself very seriously, despite her rapid rise from Moline, the 72nd TV market, to Miami, the 13th TV market, to Cleveland, the 11th TV market. "My first job was as a copywriter for a TV station," she said. "I wrote ads about spark plugs. Buy four, get one free. Then I started doing the weather. I hated doing the weather. Who knows what's going to happen up there? I'd always get it wrong." Swoboda made her debut on Channel 8 yesterday, with the first of three reports on special programs in the Cleveland schools. On March 3, she takes Denise D'Ascenzo's seat in front of the world map. D'Ascenzo is leaving at the end of this month for a weekend anchor job in Hartford-New Haven. The name game isn't the only reason Swoboda has been a hot topic in local media circles since Christmas. In Miami, Swoboda anchored the No. 1 noon newscast. Her main competition? Tana Carli. Some Channel 8 staffers maintain Swoboda got hired here because Joe Dimino, Storer executive and Carli's husband, wanted her out of Miami. (Storer is Channel 8's parent company.) Robin Swoboda (Carli was the one who sent a tape of Swoboda to Channel 8 executives, Swoboda said yesterday.) Among the 10 candidates Ballew considered for the job were weekend anchor Sandy Lesko, noon anchor Loree Vick, health reporter Robin Phillips and update desk anchor Marilou Johanek. C;. "As soon as we met Robin, we immediately liked her and knew she was the one," said Ballew. One of four children, Swoboda, 27, grew up in St. Joseph, Mo. ("Birthplace of Walter Cronkite and Phoebe on 'All My Children.'") At Missouri Western State College, she was torn between journalism and criminal psychology. After college, she took a job at a radio station in Joplin, Mo. But she missed her family and went back home, where she worked at several small advertising agencies as a writer, media buyer and assistant creative director. "I would have been the creative director," she said, "but the owners had to have something to do." Swoboda® and her brand new busband, a TV news photographer, who, coincidentally, was born in Cleveland, are living i in Rocky River. S She has spent the last few days hanging pictures on her walls and fighting butter-
Article from 18 Feb 1986The Plain Dealer(Cleveland, OH)
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CLIPPED BY
nathanobral

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