(I like Joe)!

If all goes as planned, the next time we’ll see Joe Donlon is September 1 when he debuts with Marni Hughes as the Monday-through-Friday anchor team on “News Nation,” the national nightly newscast coming to WGN America.

The question now is who will replace Donlon at WGN-Channel 9 where he’s been co-anchor of the 5, 6, 9 and 10 p.m. newscasts with Micah Materre since 2018. Nexstar Media Group owns both WGN America cable network and WGN locally.

If there’s a short list of would-be successors, no one who knows is saying. In fact, they won’t even say who’ll be filling in tonight.