Cory James dreamt of Fresno.<\/p>\n
Years after he left to pursue jobs in bigger markets \u2014 New York City, Washington D.C., Atlanta \u2014 he\u2019d randomly dream he was back with friends in his apartment on Fulton Street. He took those things as a sign.<\/p>\n
But it was a conversation with former ABC30 anchor Liz Harrison<\/a> that planted the seed for his return. He told her about the dreams. \u201cYou could come back,\u201d she told him.<\/p>\n \u201cIt hadn\u2019t crossed my mind,\u201d James told The Bee in an interview at ABC30 this week, following his return to the station as its A.M. Live and midday anchor.<\/a><\/p>\n James left ABC30 in 2020 after four years as a reporter and weekend anchor. Some might remember, on his final broadcast, he cried. \u201cLike, I didn\u2019t want to go,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The interim jobs were James ticking off a to-do list.<\/p>\n He moved to New York City because it was the No. 1 news market and an opportunity too big to ignore. \u201cIf I said no, I might not see it again.\u201d<\/p>\n In D.C. he got to be a main anchor on Nexstar\u2019s CW station.<\/p>\n In Atlanta, he worked for the top news station in his hometown \u2014 a longtime career goal.<\/p>\n But none of it made him happy. Or, as happy as he was in Fresno.<\/p>\n \u201cHome is truly where you make it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is home for me.\u201d<\/p>\n In the footsteps of Warren Armstrong<\/p>\n If it seems odd, a TV news personality ditching out on the \u201cbig leagues\u201d for a smaller TV market, James is following in footsteps. \u201cWarren did the same thing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n That\u2019s Warren Armstrong, who, in the mid-to-late 1990s, was a mustachioed news anchor at KJEO Channel 47. Until he left Fresno for Sacramento.<\/p>\n He returned four years later to take an anchor position with ABC30 Action News.<\/p>\n The mustache was gone.<\/p>\n \u201cI have always thought of Fresno as my adopted hometown,\u201d Armstrong told The Bee at the time. \u201c I have always enjoyed the community and felt welcomed here.\u201d Armstrong\u2019s wife is from Fresno and their oldest son was born here, so they never cut ties when they left.<\/p>\n In the end, \u201cit all came down to family, friends and the quality of living that they could find in Fresno,\u201d according to the 2000 story.<\/p>\n \u201cIt didn\u2019t hurt,\u201d The Bee wrote, \u201cthat his return was to the top-rated news station in town.\u201d<\/p>\n It is a sentiment echoed by James, who calls ABC30 a \u201clegacy station\u201d with 70 years of history<\/a> and a massive amount of support from the community, and also its parent company: \u201cYou don\u2019t find this sort of operation everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Changes at ABC30<\/p>\n James is part of a switch-around at ABC30<\/a>. He took over the AM duties from Jason Oliveira, who moved to the evening newscasts to replace the retiring Armstrong. This comes following the loss of three on-air personalities in July and the addition of at least one new reporter, Grant Johnson.<\/a><\/p>\n Johnson joined the station this week. It\u2019s his first full-time reporting gig, though he\u2019s done live and long-form reporting work across the country and graduates this month with a master\u2019s from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.<\/p>\n Other Fresno TV news change-ups<\/p>\n The entirety of Fresno\u2019s TV news landscape is seeing big changes right now.<\/p>\n Last week, Kim Stephens announced<\/a> she would be leaving Great Day, the KMPH morning show she helped create back in 2003. She took a full-time tenure track position at Fresno State. The four-decade TV news veteran only recently returned to the morning shows after filling in on evening desk duties for Monte Torres, who announced his retirement in June.<\/p>\n Over at Nexstar\u2019s CBS47 and KSEE24 duopoly<\/a> several on-air personalities left, including Ben Morris, Brian Dorman, Briana Byus and Jason Takhtadjian. \u201cThis happens in a lot of newsrooms where contracts come up at the exact same time,\u201d Dorman said in a final segment earlier this month. \u201cWe all started around the same time, different year … and then contracts come up and this is what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n CBS47 has been teasing Luis Cruz as its new evening anchor<\/a>, alongside Kathryn Herr and Lauren Wallace. For the past year, Cruz had anchored KSEE24\u2019s Sunrise and Midday newscasts.<\/p>\n Related Stories from Fresno Bee<\/p>\n