Why an ABC11 anchor is leaving the station and the TV news business
ABC11 weekend co-anchor Andrea Blanford will be leaving for maternity leave soon, and she won’t be coming back, according to her Sunday posts on social media.
“This evening, I will anchor my final Sunday evening newscast and begin my last week working for ABC11, a news station I have been a fan of since my days here as a college intern,” Blanford wrote on Instagram aside a photograph with her, her two children and her husband, along with two photos of her working. “I will soon begin my maternity leave and once that comes to an end, I will be staying home with my family, full-time.”
Blanford joined ABC11 as a general assignment reporter in June 2014. She covered Charlottesville, Virginia, protests, the Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting and the 2016 presidential campaigns, according to her ABC11 biography.
She became a weekend anchor and reporter in February 2018, her LinkedIn account states.
Blanford wrote in posts on Instagram and Facebook that she has always considered her job as a reporter and anchor “a public service and a high calling.”
“I have loved doing this work and have been honored to share important stories with you and to share your stories,” she wrote. “THANK YOU for trusting me all these years!”
Blanford came to ABC11 after working for WNCT-TV in Greenville for four years, including two years as a morning and noon anchor, her bio says.
Blanford graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2010, her LinkedIn account states. She worked as an ABC11 intern as an undergraduate, her bio states.
“When Andrea isn’t in the newsroom, she enjoys painting,” her bio states.
More time with family
Blanford announced on Facebook at the end of November she was having a third baby.
In Blanford’s Sunday post, she shared an excerpt from a letter to her colleagues.
The excerpt said the decision to leave was a difficult one.
“I had, up until recent months, envisioned my children growing up seeing Mommy on TV, reporting important stories, occupying a front row seat to history, helping people get answers, holding powerful people to account,” she wrote.
“But, just as I felt called to pursue this career, I now feel the Lord calling me away,” Blanford wrote.
He is leading her to a “slower, more quiet life,” she wrote.
“I can’t know for certain what the future holds, but I do know that instead of my daughter asking me on a Sunday afternoon, ‘Are you going to news?’ She can ask me on a Sunday night to read her another bedtime story,” she wrote.
Over the last few years, a number of local journalists have left the television news business, The News & Observer has reported.
Some of those departures included:
▪ Kathryn Brown, a WRAL anchor who left her position in November 2020.
▪ Sloane Heffernan, a WRAL reporter and anchor who announced her departure in June 2021.
▪ Julie Wilson, an ABC11 reporter and anchor who announced she was leaving in December 2020.
The News & Observer sent a request for an interview to Blanford on Instagram Sunday morning, and an email requesting comment to ABC11 General Manager Rob Elmore.
News & Observer editor Brooke Cain contributed to this report.
