Dana Tyler leaves WCBS/2 after 34 years

In an abrupt rupture with WCBS/2, veteran anchor Dana Tyler is leaving the station after a 34-year run there, effective immediately. She announced her departure at the end of Wednesday's 6 p.m. newscast.

In an emotional close to Wednesday's 6 p.m. edition, Tyler announced, "This is my last newscast with you here, my last day at Channel 2. Thirty-four years I've been here."

The program then jumped to a tribute reel, which Tyler followed with her own message to viewers ("pretaped because I didn't want to ugly-cry," she joked): "I'm so honored to be here. So honored, you have no idea ... [and] thank you to my several thousand co-workers in every department here who over the past 34 years, and to this very second, have collaborated with me, they've challenged and taught me. ... We've laughed, we've cried together, we've tried to do our best for you."

She added, "One of the biggest changes — and, yeah, it took a while — is diversity here ... [to make the newscast] a reflection of who our audience is and in our coverage. Still a lot of work to be done, but we've done a lot of work on it and I'm so, so proud to be part of that history."

She signed off with a tribute to her uncle David E. Harris, the first Black pilot hired by a U.S. commercial airline, who died March 8.

Tyler's exit is a surprise because earlier this month, Ch. 2's president and general manager, Johnny Green, said in a newsroom memo that Tyler would remain as a fill-in anchor after leaving the 6 p.m. news by the end of this month, while continuing to “contribute stories and interviews on air and streaming.”

But in another memo to the staff and media late Wednesday, he said, “After some thought, the one and only Dana Tyler has decided now is the time for her to say goodbye to WCBS. Today’s 6 p.m. newscast will be her last.”

Neither Tyler nor Green could be reached for further comment. Dick Brennan, her co-anchor, will fill in through the rest of the week, then Port Jefferson native Maurice DuBois and Kristine Johnson — currently anchors of the 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts — will take over the 6 p.m. program. Brennan joined WCBS/2 in 2012, after a long run at WNYW/5. He'll return to reporting.

Tyler's departure is considered by some local news observers as a cost-cutting move by Ch. 2, whose corporate parent, Paramount Global, is under considerable pressure. (The S&P downgraded Paramount's credit rating to “junk” status on Wednesday because of streaming costs and “deterioration of the linear television ecosystem.”)

Tyler, 65, has been a reliable station presence for decades — and her departure comes just two days after WNBC/4 veteran Chuck Scarborough marked 50 years at Ch. 4. After Scarborough, Tyler is New York's second-most tenured anchor of a weeknight broadcast. She is Ch. 2's longest-tenured anchor.

She arrived at the station in July 1990, from her hometown of Columbus, Ohio, where she had been a reporter and anchor for WBNS/10, and where her family was prominent: Her great-grandfather Ralph Waldo Tyler was the first accredited Black World War I correspondent, later assistant postmaster general of the United States, the highest-ranking Black official in the federal government at the time. Upon her arrival at WCBS/2, Dana Tyler was named weekend co-anchor with Reggie Harris.

Her profile soared on Feb. 26, 1993, when — as anchor of the noon newscast — she was on the air for five hours after the first terrorist attack of the World Trade Center. Ch. 2 was the only network-owned station on the air at the time because the transmitters for WNBC/4 and WABC/7 on the north tower had been knocked out, while WCBS/2's was atop the Empire State Building.

Tyler later became anchor of each major newscast — 5, 6 and 11 p.m. — and also survived the most sensational mass firing in local TV news history, on Oct. 2, 1996, when John Johnson, co-anchor Michele Marsh, anchor Tony Guida, sportscaster Bernie Smilovitz and reporters Harris, Magee Hickey and Roseanne Colletti were dismissed.

Tyler won Emmy Awards for coverage of the July 23, 2003, shooting outside City Hall of Brooklyn Councilman James E. Davis and coverage of the 2003 blackout.

Tyler was also romantically linked to musician Phil Collins from 2006 to 2016. He broke off the relationship to reconcile with his ex-wife Orianne Cevey.

In an interview with Newsday in 2022, she attributed her longevity to “luck, picking your battles, [and] lying low under the radar — the last two in combination — and control only that which you can control. I also love doing local news, and love that I get to do it every day, and have follow up the next. If I'm bad one day, I always want to be better the next. I feel so fortunate that I can do that.

“I also do feel that a big responsibility of mine is to be calm, or to try to. I can't tell someone [a viewer] that 'it's going to be OK,' but just try to remain calm and believe that we're going to get through this. That's the spirit of New York. I'm not one of those 'here's closure' types. You cannot do that here. The other thing is to just be myself. I'm not trying to be an anchor trying to do the news. I'm just Dana being — oh my goodness, I'm about to use one of those words [laughs] — being my 'authentic' self.”