JD'd rather be somewhere else

Once heir and hair apparent to sit in Walter Cronkite's old chair, veteran CBS News White House correspondent (and Canadian) John Roberts is joining CNN. Roberts, 49, made his last appearance for CBS News covering American President Bush's State of the Union address on January 21st, 2006. He starts at CNN February 20th.

Roberts' departure effectively ends the chances of another Canadian bringing home the news to Americans on a major U.S. network. Toronto-born Peter Jennings held the outpost at ABC from August 9th, 1983 to April 5th, 2005 before dying from cancer.

CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves made no secret of his dislike for Roberts. The network's contined non-decision in announcing Dan Rather's successor (who left March 9th, 2005) prompted Roberts to jump to the CNN cable network. No doubt the doors at Fox weren't open too wide to accommodate a Canadian. Or was it something in Roberts' past?

What most American visitors to this site may not know is that John Roberts was once known as JD Roberts, a VJ on Much Music -- the maple-flavoured version of MTV. JD first hosted "The New Music" in 1979 on Toronto's CityTV, which with "City Limits" helped the station's owner CHUM launch Much Music in August, 1984. Joining JD on "the nation's music station" was Christopher Ward, and soon Michael Williams and Erica Ehm (pictured with JD). Viewers who remember JD's "backstage condition" interviewing pop stars of the day on the New Music show have no doubt often wondered how much CBS knew of their once-golden boy's early broadcast style.

And what of Erica Ehm? The former miss Miechowsky (we guess that's where the 'Ehm' came from) is now a mother of two, writing songs and plays while occasionally hosting radio talk shows.

You can keep up with the divine Ehm at www.ericaehm.com. Her current project is hosting Yummy Yummy, a parenting TV series that's running on the various forms of the Discovery and Life networks.

Longtime fans of Erica can leaf through a gallery of photos covering her career. We especially like this one (that's her, far left). Yummy yummy indeed!