Phil Rogers

Reporter

Phil Rogers joined NBC5 News as a general assignment reporter in December 1991.   

Phil has reported for NBC5 throughout the United States and from around the world. He spent two months in Kuwait and southern Iraq at the outset of the war in Iraq.  He reported from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and the guided missile cruiser USS Shiloh during the Iraqi oil embargo in the Persian Gulf, was at the Pentagon in the aftermath of 9/11, and aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt when it departed for Afghanistan. 

Previously, Phil covered the 1991 Gulf War from Tel Aviv, and has twice returned to Israel for stories focusing on security concerns of Chicagoans living in Israel and the West Bank.  In May of 2006 he accompanied Mayor Richard Daley to Israel and Jordan.

Rogers reported from the aircraft carrier USS George Washington en route to Bosnia, and the nuclear submarine USS Chicago at sea in the Pacific.  He recently took viewers to the U.S. Submarine base in Groton, CT, where construction is underway on the new USS Illinois.

Rogers covered the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and the execution of convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh.

He also reported extensively from Washington during the impeachment of President Clinton, and on the corruption scandals in the administrations of Illinois Governors George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich.  Blagojevich did his last interview with Phil, minutes before entering federal custody.

Rogers reported on the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid, and has covered multiple Olympic Games in Beijing, Vancouver, and London.  

Phil has been at the scene of most major air disasters in the last two decades.  He flew with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels at their training center in El Centro, California, experienced zero gravity on a “vomit comet”, and jumped with the Army Golden Knights skydiving team.  

He showed viewers how to fly the space shuttle from the NASA astronaut training center in Houston, and in the fall of 2005, flew with former astronaut Jim Lovell to inspect restoration progress on Lovell’s Gemini 12 spacecraft.

Prior to joining WMAQ-TV Rogers spent 14 years at WBBM Newsradio. 

Prior to joining WBBM, he was a reporter at KOMA-AM in Oklahoma City from 1977-79;   He began his career as a reporter, and news director at KVRO-FM in his hometown of Stillwater, Ok.

Phil is a multiple Emmy Award winner, including a National Emmy for NBC-5’s coverage of the Burr Oak Cemetery scandal in Chicago.

He is a five-time winner of Best Reporter honors from Associated Press and United Press International. He won a prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for his investigative reporting on security at O'Hare Airport.  And is a three time winner of the Peter Lisagor Award from the Chicago Headline Club.  

A 1977 graduate of Oklahoma State University, Rogers has a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism.  He is a licensed private pilot, is married, and has two daughters.


Drop Phil a line: phil.rogers@nbc.com

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