ABC News Adds Alex Perez to Chicago Bureau

By Merrill Knox 

ABC News has hired Alex Perez as a Chicago-based correspondent, ABC News president Ben Sherwood announced today.

Perez joins ABC News from WMAQ, the NBC-owned local station in Chicago, where he has been a reporter and anchor for six years. In a memo to staffers, Sherwood called Perez “a skilled and energetic reporter who understands the power of words and images.” He will spend the next few weeks in New York before returning to Chicago.

Perez is the third recent ABC News hire from NBC Chicago. He joins former WMAQ colleagues Ginger Zee, who is the “Good Morning America” weekend meteorologist, and Paula Faris, who is the co-anchor of “World News Now,” at ABC. The three ABC hires have the added benefit of pulling top talent from an NBC station, which competes with ABC-owned WLS in the Chicago market.

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Read the full memo from Sherwood after the jump.

From: Sherwood, Ben
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 12:39 PM
To: #ABCTV News ALL
Subject: Alex Perez

Please welcome Alex Perez to ABC News.

Alex is spending the next few weeks in New York before joining the Chicago bureau as a correspondent.

Alex knows the Chicago area well – for the last six years he was a reporter and fill-in anchor for the NBC station there.  He’s covered a wide-range of breaking news stories from President Obama’s first campaign for the White House to the trial of former Governor Rod Blagojevich to the historic blizzard of 2011.

Last year, Alex won a prestigious Marshall Memorial Fellowship and traveled across Europe, meeting with government leaders, learning more about the political landscape and analyzing the EU’s financial crisis.  Alex recently returned from Cuba where he retraced his family roots with his mother who hadn’t been back in 46 years.

Alex was the first person in his immediate family to graduate from college and he’s passionate about helping young people understand the importance of higher education.  Named one of the top ten Latino journalists to watch, Alex is a skilled and energetic reporter who understands the power of words and images.

Please join me in welcoming Alex to the ABC News family.

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