Fox News anchor John Roberts is currently hospitalized with a severe case of malaria, an illness he contracted during a recent family trip to Indonesia.
Roberts broke the news himself Wednesday morning on social media. He noted he’s the only malaria patient at the Virginia medical facility where he’s receiving treatment, quoting one of his doctors as saying this is the first malaria case they’ve ever handled.
Despite malaria being eradicated from the United States in 1951, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still reports roughly 2,000 cases per year — most of them from Americans returning from overseas.
While Roberts recovers, fellow Fox News host Trace Gallagher will join Roberts’ co-anchor Sandra Smith to fill in on America Reports.
David Gilmour of Mediaite has more on the online reaction:
Roberts, who previously covered the White House for Fox, thanked doctors at Inova Health in Virginia, as well as his colleagues for stepping in.
Viewers, colleagues, and network contributors expressed shock at the news and offered their support, wishing the anchor a quick recovery.
A respected Canadian–American broadcaster, Roberts has spent decades on the front lines of news media across North America. He began in radio in Southern Ontario in the 1970s, working at CFOS (Owen Sound), CHYM (Kitchener), CJBK (London), and CHUM (Toronto), where he picked up the on-air moniker “J.D. Roberts.”
He made the jump to television in 1979, co-hosting The NewMusic on Toronto’s CITY-TV—a forerunner to MTV that helped define the early music video era.
By 1989, Roberts was anchoring for WCIX, the CBS affiliate in Miami. He joined CBS News full-time in 1992 and quickly became a fixture, co-anchoring CBS Morning News with Meredith Vieira before taking over the CBS Sunday Evening News in 1995 and the Saturday edition in 1999.
His next move came in 2006, when he joined CNN and reported from the front lines of the Israel-Hezbollah war, embedding with Israeli forces. The assignment earned him a Headline Award and contributed to CNN’s receipt of an Edward R. Murrow Award.
Roberts joined Fox News in 2011 as a senior national correspondent. In 2017, he was named chief White House correspondent, where he covered the first Trump administration with his signature sharpness and clarity. In 2021, the network promoted him again — this time to co-anchor America Reports alongside Sandra Smith.
For now, Roberts is sidelined. But he’s in good hands — and by all accounts, he’s ready to fight through.
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