Anita Padilla, Reporter - Chicago News and Weather | FOX 32 News

For more than a decade Anita Padilla has been telling stories that impact the lives of Chicagoans everyday.  

As an experienced anchor and reporter, she has recently joined the FOX Chicago News Morning Team, bringing her charismatic story telling and her knowledge of Chicago news.

Among her achievements, she counts exclusive interviews with Betty Loren-Maltese on the day of her racketeering conviction and again when she was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. 

When former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan suffered three personal setbacks while in office he turned to Anita Padilla to tell the story of his battle with cancer, the unexpected loss of his young daughter and his wife's heart attack. 

She earned an Emmy in 2000 for her role in a New Years Eve Millenium celebration.

Anita Padilla is no stranger to the FOX family.  Before coming to Chicago, she worked for WNYW-TV / FOX5 in New York City. 

She covered a number of national stories including the shooting deaths of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, the Yankees World Series Championship and the explosion of TWA flight 800 where she was the first reporter to interview Gov. George Pataki live from the scene.

Anita worked at WFTV in Orlando Florida, where she ran a news bureau and reported from Volusia County. In 1995 she earned an Emmy for Breaking News Coverage.  Anita was also a general assignment reporter at WHBF-TV in the Quad-Cities of Illinois and Iowa. 

Even before starting a career in TV she worked in radio at WXLC/WKRS in Waukegan, Illinois as an anchor and at Shadow Traffic where she was a traffic editor.  She even interned full time for broadcaster Bill Kurtis at WBBM-TV's Focus Unit.

Anita is a homegrown native of Waukegan, Illinois.  She attended college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Chicago's Columbia College.

She has numerous contacts in law enforcement and within the Latino community.  She hosts numerous events for community groups.  Her husband Tom is a  special investigator for the Illinois Attorney General.