Marion Brooks

Anchor/Reporter

Marion Brooks is an award-winning the anchor and reporter at NBC5. She anchors the NBC5 News at 11 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. each weekday and is a member of the NBC5 Investigates team of investigative reporters.

Brooks’ passion is reporting and storytelling and in her investigative work has been drawn to social and criminal justice issues.  Her series of reports on Sex Trafficking in Chicago in 2014 has earned her several awards including national recognition from the Alliance for Women in Media (Gracie) and a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award.

Brooks joined NBC5 in 1998 as a weekend anchor from Atlanta, Ga., where she also served as an anchor/reporter.

Her career has spanned over several regions and market sizes in the country. Beginning at the Sarasota Herald Tribune in Sarasota, Fla., Brooks learned the advertising side of journalism in a management training program for the New York Times Newspaper Group.

Her first job in broadcasting was in radio at WGST, a news talk station in Atlanta, in the entry level type of job that exposed her to the long hours, hard work, and adrenaline rushes of newsgathering. She credits this experience with solidifying her desire to work as a journalist.

Her first television job took her to one of the poorest regions in the country, the Mississippi Delta. From there her career wound through markets around the country with stops in Jacksonville, Fla., St. Louis, Mo., Atlanta, Ga., and Chicago.

She's covered everything from major natural disasters to politics, crime and courts to health, consumer issues to two Olympic Games, and much in between.    

Brooks has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Spelman College and is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

She is a native of Vancouver, British Columbia, and was raised in Portland, Oregon.   Brooks has two beautiful daughters, Brooks Hawkins and Sydney Hawkins.

Brooks' has been honored with Awards from the following organizations:

  • National Association of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), Midwest Chapter Emmy Award
  • National Emmy Award
  • Alliance for Women in Media (Gracie)
  • Radio Television Digital News Association (Edward R. Murrow Award, Region 7)
  • Associated Press
  • Illinois Broadcast Association
  • National Vernon Jarrett Award, 2005 - Institute of Advanced Journalism Studies, North Carolina A&T State University
  • National Mental Health Association
  • Illinois Mental Health Association
  • Chicago Association of Black Journalists

    Drop Marion a line: marion.brooks@nbc.com.

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