Rob Sweeting, who anchored at Jacksonville’s News4JAX for three decades, died Friday at age 73. Sweeting served as an anchor at Channel 4 from 1985 to 2015, after which he continued to fill in on the anchor desk for several years and remained a fixture at gatherings of current and former station employees.
“I would say if you asked me when I was, in even the eighth grade, ninth grade, it’s just something I wanted to do,” Sweeting said in a 2016 oral history interview with the Jacksonville Broadcasters Association. The Miami native discovered his passion for journalism at an early age, driven by his love of storytelling. “I just enjoyed telling a story to someone they didn’t know that they didn’t know about,” he explained during the same interview.
Sweeting’s journalism career began during his high school and college years, where he wrote for school newspapers and worked for a public radio station while studying at Florida Atlantic University. His first professional job after graduation was as a reporter for WPTV in West Palm Beach, where he would record his own video for stories using a film camera and later edit them himself.
Before arriving in Jacksonville, Sweeting’s career took him through several Florida markets and beyond, including Tampa, Miami, and Atlanta. In Atlanta, he was anchoring news on the weekend mornings when he learned of the opportunity at Channel 4 from a coworker who had previously worked at WJXT. “She said, ‘well, you ought to call my old boss in Jacksonville, they may be looking for someone to do the noon news during the week,’” Sweeting recalled during the 2016 interview.
“I said okay sure, I call, and sure enough, they needed somebody. I came down, I interviewed, I got the job. And I was going to be here, I don’t know, three years, two years, get a little experience working for them, and then boom, I’m out of here,” Sweeting said. However, what was intended to be a brief stop in Jacksonville became a 30-year career anchoring Channel 4’s newscasts.
During his tenure at News4JAX, Sweeting anchored the station’s first morning newscast, paired with meteorologist Glenn Wood, and for years anchored the noon newscast. His career at the station spanned significant moments in broadcasting history, including coverage of major news events throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Sweeting continued his connection to the station even after his official retirement in 2015, regularly filling in on the anchor desk and maintaining relationships with colleagues.
The veteran journalist’s impact extended beyond the newsroom, as he remained actively involved with station gatherings and maintained connections with both current and former employees. His three-decade commitment to Jacksonville viewers made him a recognizable face and trusted voice in the community, delivering news coverage that kept residents informed about local and national events.