Reporter Rebekka Schramm leaves Atlanta News First after 23 years

Veteran Atlanta News First reporter Rebekka Schramm has left the station after 23 years for a corporate public relations job.

Schramm was CBS affiliate WANF-TV’s longest running on-air reporter until her departure Thursday. (Adam Murphy is now the veteran at 21 years.) She starts her new job at Wellstar Health Systems on Tuesday, Sept. 3.

“This station has been so good to me!” she wrote on her public Facebook page Thursday after her final day at work there. “It’s been a blessing being able to work the morning shift for the last 14 of my 23 years here so that I could be with my family in the evenings. As a mom, it was a priority for me to be able to sit down for meals with my husband and children at night, and this station allowed me to do that.”

She noted that she “never missed a football game, wrestling match, gymnastics practice or dance recital … I’ve been blessed to have amazing colleagues and loyal viewers. I’m sure our paths will cross again some day.”

Schramm, in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said her two children are now off to college and it was time to try something new.

“I’m going to miss meeting people who I never would have otherwise encountered,” she said. “Every day was different. I met a lot of interesting people over the years.”

She grew up in a small town in Alabama and graduated with a mass communications degree from Auburn University. She worked at stations in Columbus and Norfolk, Virginia before joining what was called CBS46 (WGCL-TV) back in 2001. The station has been much more stable since it was purchased by Atlanta-based Gray Television in 2022.

Paul Caron, managing editor at the Atlanta CBS affiliate from 2015 to 2017, when it was owned by Meredith, called her smart and grounded.

“She was an amazing team player who somehow never got caught up in all the off-the-air drama of the newsroom,” Caron said. “She was the reliable rock of morning news then. She was never a complainer. She was always kind in a business that can twist your heart in a second … You wish you had more folks like her in the business.”

Many TV reporters over the years have jumped to public relations, which typically has more normal work hours than broadcast television.

Examples include:

• Claire Simms Chaffins (Fox 5, 2014-2023), director of communications at the DeKalb County District Attorney’s office
• Jennifer Leslie Boettcher (11Alive, 1998-2018), communications director for the city of Dunwoody
• Duffie Dixon (11Alive, 2004-017), director of communications at Gwinnett County Public Library
• Tony Thomas (Fox 5 and WSB-TV, 2002-2022), public affairs specialist at the FBI
• Ross Cavitt (WSB-TV, 1994-2017), communications director at Cobb County Government
• Darryl Carver (Fox 5, 2005-2013), director of communications at Fulton County Board of Health
• Blair Meeks (11Alive, 2003-2008), assistant vice president of external affairs, Georgia Tech

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