NYC Radio: R.I.P. Iconic WINS News Reporter Stan Brooks

Stan Brooks (NY Daily News)

Legendary WINS radio reporter Stan Brooks died Monday, one month after he retired from a 51-year career as a star of the “You give us 22 minutes, we’ll give you the world” newscast.

The longest serving of the City Hall “Room 9” reporters was 86, according to The NY Post.

“Brooksie,” as he was known, began doing two-minute news updates for WINS on 1010 AM in 1962, when it was still a rock ’n’ roll station featuring disc jockey Murray the K.

Every mayor since Robert Wagner knew him — and knew a press conference just couldn’t start without him. “Is Stan here yet?” they would ask.

Mayor Rudy Giuliani paid tribute by saying that every mayor respected Brooks’ skill.

“This city gained a great deal for having such a professional cover us for so long,” Giuliani said.
The Bronx-born Brooks said he got hooked on news when his father brought home copies each night of the New York Post and other afternoon newspapers.

He was on the spot when radio news was being transformed in 1964, after WINS’ owners, Westinghouse, decided to switch from a Top-40 music format to all news.

“All news? What’s that?” he responded — and became the station’s first news director.

Westinghouse made him a national correspondent, and he covered many of the historic stories, from the civil-rights demonstrations and chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention, to the Vietnam War protests and 1971 Attica Prison takeover by inmates and even the botched Gravesend, Brooklyn, bank robbery that became the basis for the movie “Dog Day Afternoon.”

He was on vacation in Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, in September 1998 when a Swissair flight from Kennedy Airport crashed into the Atlantic Ocean five miles offshore. Brooks was the first reporter on the scene.

WINS later promoted him to senior correspondent, which came with a raise. The station said Brooks accepted the new title — but not the money.

“I don’t want to make more than any of the other reporters,” Brooks said.



He continued to report some of the biggest stories of the past 20 years, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He reported his last story on Nov. 21, about the city’s transition to a new mayor, Bill de Blasio.
Just last Tuesday, Mayor Bloomberg renamed the radio reporter’s room in City Hall as The Stan Brooks Radio Room.

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