Phil Rogers

Phil Rogers joined NBC5 News as a general assignment reporter in May 1993.

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. Prior to that, 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. He was at the Pentagon in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt when it departed for Afghanistan.

Previously, he 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 on a visit to Israel and Jordan, and a month later he reported on illegal immigration issues from Mexico and Arizona.

Rogers reported from the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, as it was en route to Bosnia, and the nuclear submarine USS Chicago at sea in the Pacific.

Rogers reported from the tragic bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and covered 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 administration of Illinois Governor George Ryan. His first investigative stories on Ryan aired in November of 1993, and that coverage continued through Ryan’s indictment, trial, and sentencing in 2006.

As the NBC 5 reporter who covers aviation issues, he has been at the scene of most major air disasters in the last two decades, most recently the jetliner crash in Rockaway Beach, Queens, New York. He flew with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels at their training center in El Centro, California, and jumped with the Army Golden Knights precision 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, Rogers was a reporter at KOMA-AM in Oklahoma City from 1977-79; to that, he was the news director at KVRO-FM in his hometown of Stillwater, Okla.

Rogers is a five-time winner of Best Reporter honors from Associated Press and United Press International. He won a prestigious Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) Edward R. Murrow Award for his investigative reporting on security at O'Hare Airport. Most recently, he won an Emmy Award for a 30-minute special on the opening of the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois.

He also won Emmy Awards in 1996 for his reporting on the crash of a school bus with a Metra commuter train in Fox River Grove, 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 one daughter.

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