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Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
I knew John (aka J.D.) Roberts a very long time ago and he was an extremely decent person. (How he can work for Fox News is still a mystery to me.)
But now the former CHUM DJ and CityNews anchor has revealed he somehow has come down with malaria, an extremely unusual disease for North America. It will keep him off the air for the foreseeable future.
Just thought those who once worked with him here might be interested. 
- newsguy1
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
I'm be very curious to know how he got it.
As far as I know there is no malaria in North America, unless somehow there is a small pocket of it, say in the depths of a southern swamp.
The other possibility is he contracted it while on an assignment to an African country, but I don't know if he has ever been in those parts.
I'm fascinated with the parasitic disease because my father got it while serving in the British Army in West Africa in the Second World War.
As a kid I would see him getting an attack, and he was never really rid of it until he died.
It would come out every few years because the parasite hides in the nervous system.
Perhaps Roberts had been carrying it with him for years and it lay dormant due to suppressive drugs most people take these days before going to danger zones in the world.
I knew Roberts slightly when he was switching from being a VJ to a journalist.
I was very disappointed when he ended up at FOX.
You can't work there without knowing it is a phony news outlet -- even admitting that in court when lawyers argued Fox News is really just "entertainment."
Anyway, hope he recovers and will be able to prevent further attacks.
- Easily Amused
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
Still based in the States, is he? Nothing to worry about, RFK Jr. is MAHA.
*
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Last edited by Easily Amused (August 27, 2025 12:11 pm)
- Chrisphen
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
He has deliberately chosen his path to the Fox News abyss. My opinion of him is the same as all other of that outlet's meat puppets.
- RadioActive
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
The weird thing is that he was not like that when he was in Toronto. City TV may have been a lot of things, but in those days, it was hardly a bastion of ultra-right thinking.
The late Mark Dailey once told me that Roberts was bitterly disappointed when he was passed over for main anchor of the CBS Evening News when that rare position became open in 2005 after Dan Rather retired. As the former White House correspondent for the Eye Network, one of the most prestigious positions in TV news down south, he was considered by many to be the heir apparent. But if memory serves, veteran correspondent Bob Schieffer got the gig instead on an interim basis, before making way for Katie Couric.
J.D. left CBS for CNN soon after and then somehow ended up at Fox, where he sadly remains.
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Thread Starter- Capricasix
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
The love of money is the root of all evil.
- 67GreenRambler
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
It's the most watched cable news channel in America for the last 23 straight years. Basically 7 out of 10 Americans who watch cable news select Fox News.
That might be a reason to work for them.
- betaylored
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
I googled it and apparently Florida and Texas do have malaria cases pop up from time to time.
Re: JD's questionable choice. What's the old cliche about reigning in hell rather than serving in heaven.
Sadly, numerous Canadians have aligned themselves with a "basket of deplorables", Gretzky, Orr etc.
- Chrisphen
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
67GreenRambler wrote:
It's the most watched cable news channel in America for the last 23 straight years. Basically 7 out of 10 Americans who watch cable news select Fox News.
That might be a reason to work for them.
Will the crisp crinkling of those fresh bank notes drown out the increasing howl from the Void? I'll leave it to him and his cadre of Axis Sallys to find out.
- newsguy1
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
I have an anecdote about JD from 1988 when Toronto hosted a world economic summit.
It drew the world's most memorable leaders,
Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, etc.
I covered the summit and one day I was getting ready to file a story and JD Roberts, who was just making the switch from being a Much Music VJ was standing on a riser about to do a live report for CITY.
His producer was in the midst of counting him down, five, four, three, two, one... just as he was doing that a man from another news agency walked up to Roberts and said right into his face, "you're not a journalist, you're nothing," and walked away.
I remember feeling a pang of empathy for Roberts since that was a really unfair thing to do.
Roberts actually held steady and launched into his report to his credit.
But when he switched to Fox news years later I remembered that incident in Toronto and sort of thought, hmmm, maybe that rude guy had a premonition.
- Chrisphen
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
Maybe working with Pamela Wallin broke him. Who knows?
What I can say is that as a legitimate broadcaster he's as dead as the pig lips and assholes they press into dog food. Enjoy the payday, powdered pudface.
- Muffaraw Joe
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
WTW? Why do we need to criticize anyone we disagree with. He works at Fox, he has a job, he is a responsible journalist from what I have seen. Let's wish him well and for a speedy recovery and respect that he has had a varied and successful broadcasting career.
So he is with a right leaning channel, why is it an us versus them mentality on here, it is sickening some days.
I find the almost endless criticism to be a bit much and takes away the enjoyment about this board,
The world would be so good if it weren't for some people...
- DX
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
WTW? Why do we need to criticize anyone we disagree with. He works at Fox, he has a job, he is a responsible journalist from what I have seen. Let's wish him well and for a speedy recovery and respect that he has had a varied and successful broadcasting career.
So he is with a right leaning channel, why is it an us versus them mentality on here, it is sickening some days.
I find the almost endless criticism to be a bit much and takes away the enjoyment about this board,
Agreed.
While it's largely different from the Canadian news channels, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC all have something in common in that there is a distinction between their prime-time hosts, who are paid highly to be highly opinionated, and their news-gathering operations, which flush out the rest of their schedules and handle the breaking news and are staffed by grunt journalists, like J.D., who started at Fox as national correspondent, then was chief White House correspondent and now is an afternoon anchor.
J.D. has had an incredible broadcasting career, much more than just MuchMusic and Fox News. He once came close to being Dan Rather's successor as the CBS nightly news anchor. In fact, he's marking 50 years in the business this year, having started out in radio as a teenager.
- g121
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
Highly opinionated is very different than outright lying ..
- SpinningWheel
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
It's the most watched cable news channel in America for the last 23 straight years. Basically 7 out of 10 Americans who watch cable news select Fox News.
That might be a reason to work for them.Will the crisp crinkling of those fresh bank notes drown out the increasing howl from the Void? I'll leave it to him and his cadre of Axis Sallys to find out.
According to this Ad Week article, this is the 'second-highest-rated Q2 in network history'.
"Fox News averaged 2.633 million total primetime viewers and 304,000 Adults 25-54 viewers in Q2 2025. During total day, Fox News had 1.632 million total viewers and 202,000 demo viewers."
So 'most watched' is a big number in cable but cable is not a big number compared to the vast US market.
- Easily Amused
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Re: Former CHUM DJ & CityNews Anchor John Roberts Has Malaria
When it comes to Fox News, I always keep in mind the old saying:
Figures lie, and liars figure.