Chris Smith: Former PD reporter Cecilia Vega moves up at ABC

Cecilia Vega has big news.

Once a standout reporter for the PD, Cecilia’s been promoted by ABC to weekend co-anchor of “World News Tonight.” ABC News President James Goldston announced that Cecilia also is assigned to the team that will cover the 2016 presidential election.

It was a sad but proud day in 2004 when Cecilia left our newsroom for the San Francisco Chronicle. From there she made the leap to broadcast journalism as a reporter for KGO.

In the fall of 2011, ABC News execs invited her to New York, where Diane Sawyer appeared and told her she’d been following and enjoying her work. Cecilia was hired as a Los Angeles-based network correspondent and soon appeared on “Good Morning America,” “20/20,” “Nightline” and “World News with Diane Sawyer.”

Recently she’s been filling in on weekends on “World News Tonight” for David Muir, who moved to the weekday program. Starting this weekend, ABC chief Goldston announced, Cecilia and Tom Llamas are the weekend show’s new anchors.

So Cecilia is leaving California for New York City. It’s a well-deserved step up for a great journalist and just an exceptional person.