{"id":200581,"date":"2026-03-21T16:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T16:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/200581\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T16:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T16:35:11","slug":"rob-sweeting-beloved-jacksonville-tv-anchor-for-30-years-dies-at-73","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/200581\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Sweeting, beloved Jacksonville TV anchor for 30 years, dies at 73"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rob Sweeting<\/a>, a fixture behind WJXT TV-4’s anchor desk for 30 years, has died. He was 73.<\/p>\n

Sweeting\u00a0died March 20, News4Jax reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

Anchors Kent Justice, Staci Spanos and Joy Purdy remembered their former colleague during\u00a0an\u00a0evening newscast.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is remembered for his dedication to this community, to local\u00a0journalism\u00a0and he is also remembered for his sense of humor,\u201d\u00a0Spanos said.<\/p>\n

Sweeting, who began his career in broadcast journalism at WPTV TV-5 in West Palm Beach, came to Jacksonville in April 1985, after\u00a0stops\u00a0in Tampa,\u00a0Miami\u00a0and Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Weeks later, he took over the anchor position\u00a0for the station\u2019s\u00a0\u201cEyewitness\u00a0News\u00a0at\u00a0Noon\u201d\u00a0\u00a0following\u00a0the departure of Matt Sinclair, the Times-Union reported at the time.\u00a0With Sweeting in the role, the noon newscast would later be described as a\u00a0ratings\u00a0\u201cjuggernaut\u201d\u00a0by the\u00a0newspaper\u2019s longtime\u00a0TV critic Nancy McAlister.<\/p>\n

In October 1988, Sweeting’s responsibilities extended to mornings when he joined\u00a0the anchor desk at\u00a0\u201cEyewitness News at Breakfast.\u201d\u00a0And when WJXT added an extra hour of evening news to its lineup in September 1990, it called on Sweeting to co-anchor\u00a0\u201cEyewitness News First at 5,\u201d\u00a0where he was joined by Deborah\u00a0Gianoulis, Sam\u00a0Kouvaris<\/a>\u00a0and George Winterling<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The WJXT Channel 4 news team in 2002: Mary Baer (back, left), Sam Kouvaris, Rob Sweeting and George Winterling; Tom Wills (front, left), Deborah Gianoulis.<\/p>\n

During his 30 years\u00a0behind the anchor desk\u00a0at WJXT, Sweeting delivered some of the day\u2019s biggest news\u00a0\u2013 including the Challenger Disaster\u00a0in 1986\u00a0and the announcement that\u00a0the\u00a0NFL had\u00a0awarded Jacksonville\u00a0a team in 1993. But he was also a\u00a0fixture\u00a0out\u00a0in the community, moderating\u00a0panels\u00a0and political debates,\u00a0participating\u00a0in charity events, and serving as a role model for aspiring journalists who wanted to\u00a0follow in his footsteps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say if you asked me when I was in even the eighth grade, ninth grade … it\u2019s just something I wanted to do,\u201d Sweeting said in a recorded interview with the Jacksonville Broadcasters Association in 2016 that was shared\u00a0in the\u00a0March 20\u00a0on-air tribute.\u00a0\u201cI just enjoyed telling a story to someone they didn\u2019t know that they didn\u2019t know about.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Sweeting, who grew up in Miami, Jacksonville was supposed to be a\u00a0stepping stone, a short stay before moving on to the next media market.<\/p>\n

“I was going to be here, I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know, three years, two years, get a little experience working for them, and then boom,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0out of here,\u201d he said\u00a0in the\u00a02016\u00a0interview.<\/p>\n

But like\u00a0some of Jacksonville\u2019s other legendary news anchors, including longtime\u00a0WJXT\u00a0colleague Tom Wills<\/a>,\u00a0Sweeting stayed, welcomed into Jacksonville homes,\u00a0for decades.<\/p>\n

From 2024: 3 weeks after pancreatic cancer diagnosis, former Jacksonville TV news anchor dies at 64<\/a><\/p>\n

Sweeting,\u00a0along with\u00a0Wills,\u00a0Gianoulis,\u00a0Kouvaris, Winterling\u00a0and Mary Baer,\u00a0was part of one of Jacksonville\u2019s legendary TV news teams.<\/p>\n

He stepped away from the News4Jax anchor desk\u00a0in\u00a02015, but\u00a0continued to\u00a0fill in for his colleagues for several years.<\/p>\n

Tarik Minor\u00a0succeeded\u00a0Sweeting in the anchor role.<\/p>\n

How Rob Sweeting is being remembered<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll\u00a0never forget the day\u00a0[Rob]\u00a0handed me a new set of collar stays in the newsroom and told me to ‘keep my shirts looking sharp’ on air. No big speech\u2026no fuss\u2026that was just Rob looking out,\u201d\u00a0Minor\u00a0wrote\u00a0in a Facebook post<\/a>\u00a0after learning of Sweeting\u2019s death. \u201c… When Rob retired 11 years ago, from WJXT4 The Local Station \/ News4JAX I assumed his role as evening\u00a0anchor.\u00a0But it\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0just about the\u00a0news,\u00a0it was about the kind, steady leadership that Rob exemplified every day and his unmistakable sense of humor.\u00a0…\u00a0He was such a gentle\u2026 man. What\u00a0I\u2019ll\u00a0remember the most is how he treated people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others, too, remembered Sweeting for his kindness\u00a0and his sense of humor.<\/p>\n

Sweeting \u201cwas always there to greet you with a giant smile and a big hug. Heartbreaking to hear\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0passed on, but oh the love, laughs and legacy he left behind,\u201d wrote\u00a0former News4Jax anchor Nikki Kimbleton\u00a0in a Facebook post<\/a>. \u201cHe\u00a0brought joy to every room. I will miss you so very much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are few people whose\u00a0memory\u00a0will make me cry, and laugh,\u201d wrote anchor Joy Purdy<\/a>. Rob\u2019s \u201chumor\u00a0was just the right amount of\u00a0edgy, and\u00a0carried so many of us through some\u00a0really tough\u00a0news days. Somehow \u2026 he kept us laughing without ever getting us all called into HR.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rob Sweeting: In his own words<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Former News4Jax anchor Rob Sweeting dies at 73<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rob Sweeting, a fixture behind WJXT TV-4’s anchor desk for 30 years, has died. He was 73. Sweeting\u00a0died…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[92689,92692,116,118,117,92688,92690,92691],"class_list":["post-200581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-anchor-desk","tag-evening-news","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-rob-sweeting","tag-sense-of-humor","tag-sweeting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}