Not until last month did WKRC-TV staffers begin to wonder if something was wrong with health reporter Liz Bonis. They were stunned to learn that their “very private” colleague died Thursday, three years after being diagnosed with colon cancer. She was 58.
“We had no idea she was battling cancer,” anchor Aleah Hordges told Good Morning Cincinnati viewers Friday morning.
A longtime Channel 12 employee told me that Bonis “told no one. We didn’t know there was an issue until the last couple of weeks when she didn’t look quite right.”
The station, which announced her death at 7:11 p.m. Thursday, said she had five surgeries and participated in six experimental oncology drug trials since her diagnosis in April 2023. She died at home with family at her bedside, according to Channel 12’s story.
Bonis continued to work through it all — anchoring the weekday noon news; hosting her Sunday morning one-hour What’s Happing In Health program; and doing health/medical reports for Channel 12, which aired nationwide on most of Sinclair’s 185 stations. (She’s listed as the “health and medical reporter” for Sinclair’s news team at Dayton’s WKEF-TV and WRGT-TV.)
On her last day in the office — a week ago Friday, April 24 — she did three stories. And on Sunday and early Monday “she was texting people about possible national stories that could be done,” says Franco Gentile, WKRC-TV vice president and general manager.
Bonis — a registered dietician, certified personal trainer and a Diabetes educator — “told no one she was sick. In the last months and especially the last few weeks we suspected and knew something was wrong but were never told anything," another Channel 12 veteran told me. "We didn’t dare ask because she wouldn’t have admitted anything. I think what surprised most of us was how long she’d been fighting."
Anchor Paula Toti in her story about Bonis said that “no one worked harder than Liz . . . Texts and emails about stories started coming in at 3 a.m. Thousands of them were sent while working out on a treadmill” before coming into work at the Mount Auburn station at 8 a.m.
Bonis actually came to Cincinnati in 2002 to do radio. She hosted the Liz & Carson show with Rob Carson on the old WVMX-FM (“MIX” 94.1) when the station, WKRC-AM, WKRQ-FM and Channel 12 were owned by Clear Channel. She also hosted a syndicated weekend health and fitness radio show called Lighten Up with Liz on WKRC-AM.
She began freelancing for Channel 12 news downstairs, and eventually was hired full-time. She hosted weekend newscasts before What’s Happening In Health premiered in March 2018. Her station bio at the time said she “also publishes a monthly health and wellness newsletter, has a personal fitness video called The Lazy Way to Lighten Up (For Women) and writes weekly health articles on Lightenupwithliz.com."
For Local 12, this was the second time in three months the newsroom was rocked by an unexpected death. Photographer James Harrison, one of the four What’s Happening in Health staffers who had shot stories with Bonis for 20 years, died in February.
“Our Local 12 family is heartbroken,” Gentile says. “There is a double void. Their offices were right next to each other. This really hurts. We have a lot of healing to do.”
Many coworkers posted tributes to Bonis on their social media accounts.
“Even after anchoring four hours of news, she still did all of her health stories every single day. She was basically doing two full-time jobs at once,” wrote meteorologist John Gumm, who did the morning show for years before being named chief meteorologist. “I was in awe because by noon, I was done. But she just kept doing her thing and made it look effortless.”
WXIX-TV meteorologist Brad Mauhart, who worked with her at Channel 12, said Bonis “was always steady, always kind and always focused on helping people.” Channel 12 anchor Meghan Mongillo called her “a loving, dedicated and vibrant soul.”
Reporter Tyler Madden said Bonis helped recruit him from WTOV-TV in Steubenville after meeting her at a 2022 Ohio Associated Press awards ceremony in Columbus. “The kindness she showed to me in that moment and every moment after that is something I will never forget. She pushed me to come out to Cincy and join the WKRC team. Forever grateful,” he wrote.
Meteorologist Eric DoBroka posted a photo taken with Bonis doing the noon news together shortly after he was hired three years ago. “She taught us all a lot, in more ways than one, over her many years and health stories here and around the country,” he wrote.
It’s “shocking news, since Liz apparently kept the news to herself. She turned out health-related material for ‘KRC and stations across the country every day, while popping into Studio A for the noon show,” says meteorologist Paul Poteet, who retired in March.
“There’s something very old school about not making the story about you, which she could have done very easily, given her beat,” Poteet wrote.
In fact, on March 7 Bonis posted a photo on Facebook from taping a segment about “colorectal cancer awareness.” About that time, Bonis was encouraging her producer, Kevin Delaney, before his first colonoscopy. She said, “That’s important,” without even hinting about her condition, he said.
“She was the hardest-working person in the newsroom,” Delaney says. “If you worked with Liz, you were used to getting texts at 4 a.m. about setting up interviews or whatever. She had such a work ethic and dedication to her craft. No other TV station has a dedicated health or medical reporter. She was well known and respected by the Cincinnati medical community.”
The WKRC-TV story noted that “even at the end of her life, she told no one about her fight. Instead, she reported vigorously on new medical technology and cancer treatments even as her options dwindled. She chose instead to assist researchers and patients looking for solutions to others’ health challenges rather than focus on her own. Liz died like she lived, always determined to do the best she could on that day, and to be better the next. She worked doggedly until the end, never disclosing the severity of her circumstance to anyone.”
The secrecy about her health reminded me of how surprised Local 12 staffers were when chief meteorologist Tim Hedrick died 10 years ago. But his coworkers knew about his diagnosis, and complications from prostate cancer, even though they were unaware of the severity.
Bonis earned a bachelor's degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology College of Applied Science, and a master's degree in applied science in public communication and radio-television news from the Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University.
She was preceded in death by her mother, Esther J. Bonis, a registered nurse; her father, U.S. Army Col. Austin J. Bonis; and brother Peter, according to Channel 12. Her mother, who died in January, will be buried in June next to her husband at Arlington National Cemetery, Gentile says.
As Bonis was launching What’s Happening in Health in March 2018, we exchanged several emails. She was thrilled to be given an hour to discuss nutrition, fitness, health and medical issues, and thanked me for my interest.
“Couldn’t be more excited to share the passion!” she wrote.
At 6 a.m. May 10, much of the one-hour What’s Happening In Health will be devoted to Bonis, Gentile says.
This Sunday the station will repeat a What’s Happening In Health from March 1, when Bonis did a veterans’ panel discussion, as a tribute to her, Gentile says.
“It just didn’t feel right not to have her in the time period,” Gentile says.
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