Les Smith Back on WTKR for Short Stint

By Kevin Eck 

Les Smith, former WTKR anchor who abruptly left the station, will be back on the air starting tonight, if only briefly, to help out during election season.

The Virginian-Pilot reports, Smith will work “as a political reporter for WTKR-TV, covering races and candidates around Hampton Roads, and ‘finding out what they really think aside from a 30-second commercial,'” said Smith.

The Norfolk anchor who had worked at rival NBC affiliate WAVY for more than 20 years before coming to WTKR, abruptly quit the CBS affiliate, “I didn’t quit the news business; I quit life,” Smith told WTKR in an April interview.

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Smith, who briefly went on to work at stations in New York, explained he was battling depression at the time, “I did it with lots of things: alcohol, relationships, spending, you name it, a lot of people who battle depression use all these things to try to take the pain away. I ended up in a hospital in NYC, where I was working and I really wanted to die. I was trying to die,” he said.

Smith now works in real estate.

On his WTKR facebook page he posted a picture of himself sitting at the news desk with the caption, “This is going to be fun…starting Monday at Four!”

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