On the day before Thanksgiving, WTSP anchor Rob Finnerty told viewers goodbye after four years on the air in Tampa Bay. The “Brightside” anchor said he was following his wife, who’s worked with her own company for 15 years, to New York so she could pursue a great opportunity.
“Without being too self important as I think sometimes these news goodbyes tend to be my wife has followed me literally my whole career,” Finnerty explained.
In his comments, Finnerty—who’s worked in markets from his hometown of Boston to Bakersfield and Kansas City, Missouri—called the decision to move away from the place his kids were born “bittersweet.”
But it looks like he’s already landed a job.
Finnerty’s Twitter and Facebook profiles show that he’s now working for Newsmax, the cable channel Donald Trump all of a sudden seems to love more than Fox News. In the weeks since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris earned a landslide Electoral College victory and more votes than any presidential ticket in history, Newsmax—along with its un-related (but, maybe, related?) cousin OAN—has continuously pushed Trump’s baseless, and false, theories about widespread election fraud which made Trump the first incumbent in nearly three decades to lose a reelection. Arguably, this has paid off for the network. WaPo recently reported on a survey that shows an increase in the number of Americans who name Newsmax and OAN among two to three news sources they rely most upon.
Creative Loafing Tampa Bay reached out to Finnerty to get some insight into the move from a fairly-balanced local station to what could become a very influential, right-wing, conspiracy-friendly channel. We'll update this post when he responds.
Some of Finnerty’s last posts during his time at WTSP felt like the thoughts of someone living in the center of the political spectrum, like when he urged people to wear masks, but he’s turned it to the right since arriving at Newsmax.
“Andrew Cuomo writing a book about the #coronavirus in New York would be like Jack writing a book about the Titanic sinking while the ship was going down,” he wrote on Dec. 3. A day later, he added, “The COVID-19 governors Andrew Cuomo, Charlie Baker, & Gavin Newsom are all up for re-election in 2022... what’s sad is that they’ll all probably win.”
By last weekend—the same week Pasco’s Republican Supervisor of Elections roasted Trump lackeys for pushing a false narrative, dividing the country and endaging election workers—Finnerty was starting to really lean in.
“I’m tired of hearing, ‘it’s not enough to change the election.’ Fraud is fraud, and if any is found - a single vote cast, that should be exposed,” he wrote on Dec. 5. Yesterday, he retweeted a @newsmax post lamenting indoor and dining restrictions in Los Angeles and added, “It should’nt be up to democratic governors and mayors to decide how and where Americans eat.”
So, yeah, looks like Finnerty’s eating red pills now; 2020, amirite?
It should’nt be up to democratic governors and mayors to decide how and where Americans eat. @newsmax https://t.co/edRU3RzhH4
— Rob Finnerty (@FinnertyUSA) December 7, 2020
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