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Chicagoist would like to open our day by wishing a very Happy Birthday to the woman who makes getting out of bed seem worth it: Ana Belaval, the Around Town feature reporter 
for WGN Morning News.
Though we used to tune in to WGN for the comic stylings of Paul Konrad, we now find ourselves counting down the minutes until they dispense with all the fires, bombings and indictments in the first hour and get to the Around Town segments featuring its fearless reporter, usually in at least one silly, but fantasy-inducing, outfit sometime during the week.
Her devil-may-care reporting style and our initial confusion as to how to pronounce her last name had us marveling over exactly who this dynamo of feature work was when she joined WGN last year. Belaval was born in Puerto Rico and spent a decade at Univision, both locally and later as a network correspondent for its own morning show based out of New York. She’s also married to a guy who seems like a really decent fella, but we’re trying not to think about that.
Chicagoist plans on celebrating Ms. Belaval’s birthday by playing all the Tivo’ed clips we have of her during the Friday Dance segment. In slow motion. Repeatedly.
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She's attractive, but does she have to yell every single time she's on camera?
I get that she's sometimes at noisy places, and that she wants to keep the energy up. But she yells constantly!
I predict that she has a big future in broadcasting, however. I imagine she'll get grabbed by one of the big networks soon, or land something in prime time. She's very good at what she does, and seems to be the first (that I know of) crossover hispanic TV personalities - that is she speaks in english with a spanish accent, and doesn't try to overly anglicize herself. I think we'll be seeing more of this in the future.
I'm with Jeff. I appreciate what she does but the loud raspy voice in the morning sometimes makes me feel more annoyed than anything...
scott, you dog, you. i feel so betrayed.
I think she has a great personality, but her "Around Town" is pretty weak in content and tends to be redundant. Seriously, how many times can you go to a spa in the suburbs? I think there are plenty more interesting happenings/places in Chicago in any given week than what she presents. Slightly unrelated, I think Valerie Warner will probably make it big time too.
people here are actually debating the Content of her reports??? i don't care what she is 'reporting' on, as long as she is on my TV! I actually used to watch her on univision and i don't even speak spanish...so i know she can do serious reporting and newsreading.
Geez scott, did ya have to tell us she's married?? oh well, there's always michelle gallardo, on WLS-Channel 7.
I actually used to watch her on univision and i don't even speak spanish...so i know she can do serious reporting and newsreading.
Uhhh...if you don't understand spanish, then how did you come to that conclusion?
spence said:
Uhhh...if you don't understand spanish, then how did you come to that conclusion?
by the look in her eyes. ohhhh, i've looked deeply into her eyes...i know she was speaking to me, even though i didn't know what she was sayin' and i loved how at the end of one of her reports the anchor would say 'gracias anamaria' and hey, whatever happened to the 'maria' in anamaria? was it dropped because it may have been too ethnic???
Is there any way you guys can put the tivo'd clips of the friday dance on your website? Or at least e-mail them to me? I think Ana is HOT! I also remember some voicemail segment of her in a very revealing holoween costume. Do you have that, too?