Jill Manuel

Jill Manuel, former news director of Tribune Broadcasting’s CLTV, is returning to Chicago to become assistant news director at Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32.

Announcement of her hiring Thursday came just 10 days after Manuel was released from WEWS-TV, the ABC affiliate in Cleveland, where she had been news director since 2008.

Effective April 15, she succeeds Chris Myers, who resigned last January after two years as assistant news director at Fox 32 to join Al Jazeera America in Los Angeles. She reports to Tom Doerr, vice president and news director.

During her tenure in Cleveland, Manuel was credited with introducing the “Newsroom of the Future,” requiring all journalists including anchors, reporters and photographers to shoot, write, edit and voice stories for broadcast, web and mobile devices. In 2011, her station won a George Foster Peabody Award for investigative reporting.

“I am thrilled to be returning to Chicago to work with the Fox 32 news team,” Manuel said in a statement. “I look forward to collaborating with them to produce quality journalism and tell stories that impact our audience on broadcast and digital platforms.”

Before she was named news director of CLTV in 2005, Manuel spent a year as deputy director of communications for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and three years before that as an executive producer at CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2.

Earlier she was a senior producer for Fox News in Washington, D.C., and New York. She holds degrees from Lawrence University and Syracuse University.