Chuck Goudie joining NBC Chicago after exiting ABC station

By Michael P. Hill February 3, 2025

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NBC’s Chicago station WMAQ has hired longtime investigative journalist Chuck Goudie after he exited rival WLS in late 2024.


Goudie, whose departure from the ABC-owned station was announced earlier in January 2025, will become part of the WMAQ’s NBC 5 Investigates team starting Feb. 10, 2025.

“Investigative reporting is more important than ever,” said Sally Ramirez, senior vice president of news for WMAQ and Telemundo sister station WSNS, in a statement. “Adding Chuck, one of the best journalists in the nation, to our award-winning NBC 5 Investigates team ensures an even greater commitment to our Chicagoland viewing audience.”

“I walk into WMAQ on the shoulders of giants,” said Goudie in the same statement. “Many of them I have been lucky enough to know, stand beside, work with and learn from. Paul Hogan, Phil Walters, Floyd Kalber, Peter Karl, Renee Ferguson, Rich Samuels, Linda Yu, Rob Elgas, Mike Adamle, Phil Rogers, Dick Johnson, Rob Stafford, Mark Giangreco, Tim Weigel, Art Norman, Lisa Parker, Dick Kay, Ron Magers, Carol Marin, Don Moseley and other friends who are still in the Chicago trenches at NBC 5 that I am excited to join.

“I’m grateful to become part of an organization with such a powerful pedigree and a legacy of investigative excellence. A place with a motto more relevant today than ever, baked into its call letters: We Must Ask Questions,” he continued, referring to how the station’s call signs are said to stand for that phrase, even though the letters originally were assigned by the government.


Goudie joins NBC Chicago after nearly 45 years on the air at ABC 7 Chicago. 

Goudie follows Steve Dolinsky, who was known as the “Hungry Hound” while at WLS, as another well-known ABC 7 personality to show up on NBC 5 (for its part, WLS lured anchor Elgas away from WMAQ in 2015).

No reason was given for Goudie’s ABC 7 exit. He had been absent from the station’s air for several weeks earlier in the month before the station announced his official last day with it was Dec. 31, 2024.

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Goudie had been part of WLS’s I-Team which, like WMAQ, covers both hard-hitting investigative topics and consumer investigations. 

He joins existing investigative reporter Bennett Haeberle, who joined the station in 2023. The team will be back by longtime producers Katy Smyser and Lisa Capitanini.

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