Jackie Lukas now reporting for Catholic Faith Network

Jackie Lukas, the longtime News 12 anchor who left the channel in January, has joined Catholic Faith Network (formerly Telecare) as a reporter and anchor, she announced on Twitter Monday.

Lukas acknowledged "this opportunity to work with Msgr. Jim Vlaun and a former co-worker and familiar face, Colleen McVey." (McVey — News 12's first morning anchor, who left in 2019 after a 30-year run there — joined CFN as an anchor in 2020.)

Vlaun, a frequent on-air anchor and host of a CFN cooking program ("Real Food"), is president of Uniondale-based CFN, which is operated by the Archdiocese of Rockville Centre.

In a phone interview, Lukas called her new job "the perfect fit to put my family first and continue to connect with people and tell great stories that will hopefully put a smile on someone's face." The Huntington resident and mother of three (ages 5, 7 and 9) said she also started a media consulting company (Jackielukas.com) after leaving News 12.

Lukas was one of four senior anchors and reporters who left News 12 in January as part of what the channel called a newsroom reorganization. She had been the weekend morning anchor since 2006, and had also worked as a general-assignment reporter.

Vlaun said in a phone interview Tuesday that Lukas, in addition to her reporting stories, will be one of a handful of anchors who rotate throughout the week on CFN's weekday morning news program, "CFN Live." McVey, he said, is the main anchor of the program. 

Along with other CFN news programs, "CFN Live'' covers a wide range of topics edited specifically for Catholic viewers in the metropolitan area, and increasingly, for viewers around the country that can access CFN on the internet or through such streaming players as Roku, Vlaun said. Much of the coverage is also international in scope — and much of that originating from the Vatican — while CFN is planning to cover Cardinal Timothy Dolan's trip to Poland and Slovakia later this week to meet with Ukrainian refugees, Vlaun said. 

Lukas, he said, will eventually "be involved in all of that" sort of coverage. "We're excited about it."

As a reporter, Lukas said she plans to do "more local stories that appeal to [viewers around] the country." One of her first stories will be about the so-called relics of St. Bernadette of Lourdes, which will be on display at St. Patrick's Cathedral in late May. 

Otherwise, "literally, it's my second day and it's all very new. We're trying to work out how they can use me best." Lukas said she expects to get on the air early next month.

CFN has hired other prominent New York-based TV veterans either on a full- or part-time basis in recent years, including former NBC News and WNBC/4 anchor Jane Hanson, and WPIX/11 reporter Magee Hickey, who has done freelance work for the network, according to Vlaun.