Elizabeth Brackett

Education

Brackett attended New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois and earned an undergraduate degree from Indiana University.

Career

She is also a World Champion Triathlete. She took the title in 2009 held in Sydney Australia

She also holds a master"s degree on social work from Our Lady of the Lake College. After graduating from Our Lady of the Lake College, Brackett worked part-time as a social worker at the Young Men’s Christian Association in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago.

She also worked for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services as a social worker and also as a community organizer in Uptown.

In 1972, Brackett was a delegate to the Democratic presidential convention in Miami, along with Jesse Jackson and William "Bill" Singer. In 1975, Brackett served as a fundraiser and advance director for Singer"s unsuccessful bid to be mayor of Chicago.

In 1976, she unsuccessfully ran for a seat as a committeeman in Chicago"s 43rd ward. In 1977, Brackett took a job as a researcher on the assignment desk of WBBM-TV-television in Chicago.

In 1979, she joined World's Greatest Newspaper-television in Chicago.

She later became a reporter at World's Largest Store -television in Chicago. She then joined the forerunner to Public Broadcasting Service" The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, based from Chicago, in 1984. In 1991, Brackett began appearing occasionally on Window To The World"s Chicago Tonight public-affairs program

In 1994, Brackett was hired full-time as a correspondent for Chicago Tonight.

Under the agreement, she was permitted to contribute to what would eventually become Public Broadcasting Service" The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. From 2000 until 2001, Brackett, along with journalist and comedian Aaron Freeman, co-hosted a science-themed spin-off of Chicago Tonight called Chicago Tomorrow.

In 2009, a book Brackett wrote, titled Pay to Play, How Rod Blagojevich Turned Political Corruption Into a National Sideshow was published. The book is about the former Illinois governor.

Brackett married Peter Martinez on September 27, 1998.

A previous marriage ended in divorce. Brackett lives in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Achievements

• Brackett won a national Emmy award in 1987 for her reporting on the United States. farm crisis. The following year, she won a national Peabody Award for her coverage of the 1988 presidential election. She also has won three Midwest Emmy awards and two Peter Lisagor awards as well.