Brian Thompson
WNBC TV’s Emmy award-winning New Jersey reporter Brian Thompson will serve as the Master of Ceremonies at CONTACT We Care’s Gala on November 6. In a career that has spanned nearly 35 years in New York, Washington, DC and Charlotte, North Carolina, Thompson has consistently served the public with timely, top-notch reporting.
Thompson has broken numerous stories, including the news that then-New Jersey Governor James McGreevey would resign in a sex scandal. Two hours later, the Governor went on national TV to announce what Thompson had first reported.
It was the departure of Governor McGreevey and his replacement by acting Governor Richard Codey that led to one of the most significant stories of Thompson’s career, a 45-minute sit-down interview with the First Lady of New Jersey and Governor Codey regarding her life-long struggle with depression.
A year after 9/11, Thompson was the first and only reporter to listen to and air the New Jersey police recordings of the attack on the World Trade Center, a story later nominated for an Emmy award.
Prior to joining WNBC in 1998, Thompson worked for five years in Washington, D.C., covering the White House, Capitol Hill, Supreme Court and federal agencies for two-dozen TV stations around the nation.
In 2005 Thompson earned a New York Emmy-award for his work on WNBC’s political series “What Matters.” He has been cited five times by the Associated Press for Best Coverage by a New Jersey Based Correspondent and was awarded the first Environmental Journalism Award by the NY/NJ Baykeeper for a pair of reports on an illegal development on the edge of New York’s Harbor.