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Jonathan Elias will be leaving WBZ-TV CBS 4 in Boston to join WJLA-TV ABC 7 in Washington, D.C. as their main evening news anchor, New England One has exclusively learned.

Jonathan will be taking over for Gordon Peterson, who decided not to renew his contract with WJLA last November after their acquisition by Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Jonathan joined WBZ in October 2007 as an anchor for the news at 5pm & 5:30pm, and a reporter for the 11pm broadcast. Jonathan joined Lisa Hughes at 11pm in 2012 when Jack Williams stepped down from that newscast. He has anchored the 6pm and 10pm news with Paula Ebben since August when WBZ made anchor changes across the board.

Inside sources say Jonathan had a clause in his current contract with WBZ that allowed him an early exit if WBZ took him off of the 11pm news, which they did in August.

While at WBZ, Jonathan was at the finish line of the Boston Marathon reporting for WBZ when the bomb went off in 2013. It was a week of news coverage he says he will never forget. WBZ was honored for their coverage of the bombing with an Alfred I. duPont Award as well as a George Foster Peabody Award. He was also in the field anchoring from Newtown, CT during the school shooting there, which the WBZ News team won a national Emmy award for.

Since Jonathan came to WBZ, he has won eleven New England Emmy awards including Best Anchor and Best Reporter three times.

Jonathan joined WBZ from KNXV-TV ABC 15 in Phoenix, AZ where he was the main evening anchor for 5 years. He also traveled the country reporting on stories like Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, and the Washington D.C. sniper shootings.

While in Phoenix his investigative work won him a Peabody Award, an Emmy award, a National Headliner Award, and an Investigative Reporters and Editors certificate. He also formed the "Welcome Home Project" to honor and recognize returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Prior to KNXV, Jonathan was the main anchor at KCBS-TV CBS 2 in Los Angeles where he anchored the 6pm news. He also reported some of the biggest stories in the nation at the time. His team won a prestigious Golden Mike award for coverage of the Jewish Day Care Center shooting. He also anchored for hours following the crash of Alaskan Airlines flight 261.

Jonathan's first anchor job was at WCCO-TV CBS 4 in Minneapolis, MN, where he anchored the 5pm newscast and reported for the 10pm. He was also the station's lead reporter on such national stories as the Oklahoma City bombing, Hurricane Erin, the Malibu fires, the Northridge earthquake, the O.J. Simpson trial, Hurricane Emily, the crash of TWA Flight 800, Montana militia, and devastating flooding in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Jonathan was part of the WCCO team that won a Peabody Award. He also won two local Emmy awards, including "Best Anchor" for anchoring coverage of Red River flooding. Jonathan also won "Best Writing" and "Best Feature" awards from the Associated Press.

Jonathan has also worked as a reporter for WBRC-TV FOX 6 in Birmingham, AL; KOVR-TV CBS 13 in Sacramento, CA; and  KNVN-TV NBC 24 (then KCPM-TV) in Chico, CA. He also worked behind the scenes for both CNN and KTLA-TV in Los Angeles.

In addition to his work in broadcast news, Jonathan has also served as the Honorary Commander of Hanscom Air Force Base and is an instructor once a year at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA where he has taught a media course since 2007.

At present, Jonathan has won a duPont Award, three Peabody Awards, a national Emmy Award, an impressive twenty one local Emmy Awards, a national headliner award, and twenty two Associated Press awards.

A native of Los Angeles, Jonathan is a graduate of California State University at Northridge where he achieved a Bachelor's degree in history.

Jonathan is married and has two children. He met his wife Holly when they were 5 years old! In his free time, he enjoys golf, martial arts, weightlifting, rock climbing, and target shooting. Now and then he likes to play the piano or “pick his banjo.”

Jonathan is expected to be leaving WBZ in the next three months, and starts at WJLA in June.

 

 

Updated to include Tweets from Jonathan Elias and Paula Ebben.

 

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