Jim Hooker
Senior Anchor

As NJN News State House correspondent, Jim Hooker brings two decades of award-winning reporting to the beat. In addition to daily reporting for the newscast, Jim also serves as a substitute anchor for NJN News and primary substitute host for Reporters Roundtable with Michael Aron, where State House reporters dissect and handicap New Jersey politics.

He also serves as a host for the Emmy-nominated Congress Watch and On The Record, two NJN News public affairs programs. NJN viewers saw a lot of Jim last summer, as he led NJN's 'round the clock coverage of the first-ever state government shutdown during the '06 budget crisis. He has also contributed special reports and produced documentaries from such varied spots around the globe as China, Hong Kong and the Netherlands.

Jim was recently recognized with the prestigious national CINE Golden Eagle award for a documentary that aired on NJN in 2005 that he wrote, co-produced and hosted. The program, Securing Our Ports, probed the issue of port security in the Netherlands and New Jersey well before the Dubai ports controversy broke nationally.

Jim also helped NJN News win a 1996 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for best newscast. His contribution was a story about the concerns of residents of a North Jersey neighborhood that is home to a federal Superfund site which was visited by President Clinton.

He has also won numerous regional and local press awards. In 2003, he won a first place feature reporting award from the Philadelphia Press Association for a story on a Newark soup kitchen.

He has also been part of NJN's team coverage of U.S. presidential conventions in Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia and New York.
One highlight from the 2000 presidential campaign was a one-on-one sitdown with President Bush, then governor of Texas.

Jim's work in journalism has been recognized repeatedly by his peers. In 2001, he was elected by reporters and bureau chiefs who cover the State House for other media outlets as president of the New Jersey Legislative Correspondents Club, becoming the first president in the club's 80-plus year history to come from the broadcast media.

He has also been recognized in the community. Such recognition includes the 2006 William H. Thomas Citizen of the Year award from the Probation Association of New Jersey. Jim was selected for the award by Mr. Thomas. The two met through tragedy in 1994 when Jim covered the Thomas and Wengert families' push for reforms for the Asbury Park Press after Mr. Thomas' 6-year-old granddaughter, Amanda Wengert, was murdered.

Before joining NJN, Jim was a staff writer at three newspapers, including 10 years with The Times of Trenton and the Asbury Park Press.
As a member of the Asbury Park Press State House bureau, Jim shared first place honors from the New Jersey Press Association for the bureau's reporting on the 1993 governor's race. Jim was also recognized for an award by the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists in 1994, this time for public service, for a series of reports on sex offender notification programs in Washington state and their impact on neighborhoods and offenders. The series ran as lawmakers here were debating Megan's Law.

In 1990, while with the Trenton Times State House Bureau, Jim was awarded the top prize for investigative reporting by the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The Society recognized Jim's exposure of and subsequent reporting on millions of dollars in unauthorized spending by a New Jersey State official. His reports led to a new state law strengthening penalties for such actions.

Jim started his journalism career as an intern at the Herald-Dispatch newspaper in Huntington, WV, while still a student at Marshall University. After graduating Marshall, he returned to his native Long Island, landing a job at the Smithtown News, the flagship paper for a chain of weeklies on Long Island's north shore. While with the paper in 1984, he was awarded the James Murphy Memorial Cub Reporter of the Year award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Press Association of Long Island Chapter. Jim left the News in 1985 to work at the Trenton Times, starting there as a general assignment reporter. Outside news reporting, Jim enjoys music, sports and spending time with his family.