KHRISTOPHER J. BROOKS
is an award-winning journalist with almost 15 years of experience covering education, business, and enterprise topics for newspapers and news websites.
He was born in Detroit during the Bad Boys era of the NBA. The Detroit Pistons inspired him to one day become the team’s starting point guard but that never happened. Instead, a Canadian fortune teller told Brooks’ mother that her son would become a journalist. His career started in 2000, covering sports for his high school newspaper then Brooks began studying journalism at Central Michigan University.
Brooks wrote for Central Michigan’s student newspaper – Central Michigan Life – for three years. He was the first student to win CM Life’s Most Dedicated Reporter award twice (2003-04 and 2004-05). Brooks completed four internships, including a business reporting internship at the Lansing State Journal. He became a Chips Quinn Scholar in 2006, the same year he landed a reporting internship at The Associated Press.
Brooks’ first full-time reporting job was in Virginia at the Bristol Herald Courier, where he covered business and education. He gained statewide notoriety after reporting that school officials sent home a controversial No Child Left Behind letter attached to students’ report cards. The stories earned second place in education reporting from the Virginia Press Association.
After Virginia, Brooks joined the Omaha World-Herald in Nebraska where he covered higher education and led the World-Herald’s coverage in the University of Nebraska’s plans to convert former Nebraska State Fairgrounds into a public/private research park.
Brooks left Nebraska and pursued a master’s degree in literary reportage at New York University. At NYU, he learned how to turn sources into characters and quotes into dialogue under the tutelage of some of New York City’s greatest storytellers. He spent non-class hours as a freelancer for POLITICO New York and Patch.com.
Brooks returned to journalism as a K-12 and higher education reporter at The Florida Times–Union. In 2014, Brooks was part of an investigative reporting team that successfully sued the Florida Department of Education, forcing the agency to release highly secretive teacher evaluation scores.
In 2015, after covering education for 8 years, Brooks became the innovation and entrepreneurship reporter at the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, New York. He covered startups, venture capital and advanced manufacturing in Finger Lakes region. In 2016, he won 3rd place in best business writing from the New York State Associated Press Awards. Brooks spent the following three years as a government watchdog reporter for Newsday on Long Island.
Brooks’ hobbies include cooking seafood, herb gardening, comic books and traveling. He has been an adjunct professor at SUNY Old Westbury, SUNY Purchase, The New School and Hunter College.
Today Brooks lives in upstate New York and works as a reporter for CBS News, covering business and financial news. He is the proud owner of two Russian Blue cats (Crank and Staravia) and has been married to his middle school crush Deprina since 2016. Even though Brooks will never become a professional basketball player, that doesn’t keep him from cheering on his favorite team – the Detroit Pistons.
