Ponce is Host of Chicago Tonight. Ponce has an undergraduate degree in English from Indiana University and a law degree from the University of Michigan. He began at WTTW11 in 1992 as a correspondent for the show and substitute for longtime host John Callaway. In 1997, Ponce joined the Washington, D.C.-based NewsHour with Jim Lehrer as an anchor. Two years later, Ponce returned to Chicago to host Chicago Tonight; he also teaches at Loyola University Chicago.
Ponce grew up in neighboring East Chicago, Indiana. He and his artist wife, Ann, live in Chicago and have three grown children, a photographer daughter and two sons who also are Chicago broadcast journalists.
Marin joined the Chicago Tonight team in January 2006 to host discussions on local issues and news stories. As a contributor twice a week, Marin will also conduct timely interviews with Chicago's newsmakers. Marin has worked as an anchor and network correspondent, has been awarded two George Foster Peabody awards, two National Emmy awards, and two Alfred I. duPont Columbia University awards. She has worked for NBC5, WBBM, and CBS on 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes II, The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, and 48 Hours. In addition to her role on Chicago Tonight, she will continue her work as an investigative reporter for NBC5 and as a political columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Brackett is a correspondent and segment host for Chicago Tonight. Brackett gained critical acclaim for her work, winning a Peabody in 1988 for election coverage, and an Emmy in 1999 for hosting Chicago Tonight. She also won an Emmy in 1984 for her work on The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour (now The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer). Brackett began her television career as a researcher and weekend reporter at WBBM Channel 2 in Chicago and went on to general assignment reporting at WGN-TV Channel 9 and WLS-TV Channel 7. From 1984 to 2011 she served as the Midwest correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
Arruza is a correspondent and segment host for Chicago Tonight. Eddie began his television career in Chicago working in a number of behind- the-scene capacities at two Spanish-language stations. He became a general assignment reporter for Chicago's former Univision affiliate, WCIU-TV, before making the jump to the English language market working at WABC-TV in New York City and then WGN-TV in Chicago. In addition to reporting for the WGN News at Nine, Eddie was also a substitute anchor and host of a Latino-oriented public affairs program for which he won an Emmy Award.
Weisman is Host and Senior Editor of Chicago Tonight: The Week in Review, winner of Chicago Emmy Awards for Outstanding Conversation Program Series and Outstanding Public Affairs Series. He has been with Channel 11 since 1973. His name is synonymous with no-nonsense, often inside information about Chicago politics and public affairs. In the weekly program, first aired in 1978, Weisman analyzes and assesses the Chicago impact of state, local, and national issues with a panel of journalists.
A Chicago native, he broke into journalism with the storied City News Bureau of Chicago, worked for the Gary Post-Tribune, was political editor and investigative reporter for the Chicago American(Chicago Today), reporter/columnist and Metropolitan Editor of the Chicago Sun-Times and Midwest correspondent for The Washington Post. He's won multiple Peter Lisagor, Jacob Scher, and Associated Press awards and was twice nominated for Pulitzer Prizes for his investigative reporting. His television career includes Emmy Award-winning commentary and news analysis for WGN Television.
Weisman is also an attorney, specializing in media and entertainment law. He represents journalists at stations and publications around the country and has lectured extensively on legal and journalism issues.
Ash-har Quraishi is an award winning journalist with more than a decade of international, investigative and long-form reporting experience. Before returning home to Chicago in 2010, Quraishi spent more than six years serving as CNN's Islamabad bureau chief and correspondent. There he was responsible for the network’s coverage of Pakistan beginning just days after the 9/11 attacks. He reported extensively on the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the religious extremist movement in Pakistan and, in an award-winning five-part series, Pakistan’s first general elections since the 1999 military coup.
Back in the U.S., Quraishi served as the Chief Investigative Reporter for KCTV – the Kansas City CBS affiliate. His investigative reports there exposed corruption, imprisoned criminals and prompted change in city and state government. He is the recipient of five Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards, four Mid-America Emmy’s and two National Headliner Awards. In 2004, Triangle Media Group named him one of the top 50 South Asian Global Achievers in Mass Media.
A native of Chicago’s Peterson Park neighborhood, he is a Correspondent on WTTW’s flagship nightly newsmagazine show Chicago Tonight. He has also recently completed postproduction on a feature-length documentary on the Arab-American experience in Dearborn, Michigan post 9/11 to be released later this year.
Field is Executive Producer of Chicago Tonight, WTTW 11's nightly news and current events hour. She is responsible for all news and public affairs production at the station, including Chicago Tonight, Chicago Tonight: The Week in Review and segments produced for The PBS NewsHour.
In more than 35 years in the news business, Field has been a William Benton Fellow in broadcast journalism at the University of Chicago, an investigative/special projects producer for WGN-TV, an assistant news director for WIND Radio and a reporter for the legendary City News Bureau.
She has been honored with numerous journalism awards for investigative reporting as well as a Peter Lisagor Award for public service and a National Silver Gavel Award for legal affairs reporting. She received a 2009 lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Headline Club, the Chicago chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Smith is Supervising Producer for Chicago Tonight. In more than 20 years at Channel 11, Smith has served as the producer of Chicago Week in Review and The Cheap Show, and produced a number of Chicago Stories documentaries. He also was the producer of WTTW's national (PBS) series HandyMa'am with Beverly DeJulio. Smith has received numerous awards for his work, including 6 Chicago/Midwest Emmys and two Peter Lisagor Awards from the Chicago chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Smith is a graduate of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
Jay Shefsky is Senior Producer and correspondent for Chicago Tonight, and the host of the weekly series, Jay's Chicago. During his more than 25 years at WTTW, Shefsky has told a lot of stories about people and life in Chicago. His 10 documentaries were honored with numerous awards, including Emmys, Peter Lisagor awards, and a Cine Golden Eagle. His work has been broadcast nationally on PBS and on the ABCNEWS Nightline program. In 2003, he brought his unique brand of storytelling to Chicago Tonight, where his beat has ranged from history to arts to science to human interest stories.
Michelle McKenzie-Voigt is Facilities Manager for WTTW and the editor of the Viewer Mail segment. She has been at WTTW since her graduation from Northwestern University, where she was a double major in Theater and Art History.
Paris Schutz is a correspondent and producer with Chicago Tonight. He began in 2005 as an intern after graduating magna cum laude from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. Schutz also created, co-produced and co-wrote the Emmy-nominated WTTW political satire program “IL Informed.” In one of his prouder moments, he performed a political rap on Chicago Tonight. He is a former musical actor, having taken the stage as a kid at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Drury Lane Oak Brook, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. He is a songwriter and composer, and you can see him around town rocking on the piano, thrilling his adoring fan(s).
Alex Silets joined Channel 11 in 1997 and has been a producer on a variety of award-winning shows at WTTW including “Chicago Tonight,” “Chicago Week in Review,” “The Cheap Show” and the weekly documentary program, “Chicago Stories.” In 2007, she co-produced a groundbreaking documentary on the history of Chicago's Lesbian Gay Bi-Sexual and Transgendered community, "Out & Proud In Chicago" hosted by Jane Lynch. The PBS documentary aired nationally and won a Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists among other honors. She also produced the Emmy-nominated WTTW documentary "Schoolboy to Showgirl: The Alexandra Billings Story." She was a co-producer of a national PBS series on women's health, "Health Secrets: What Every Woman Should Know," hosted by Paula Zahn. The series won a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media. Silets received her undergraduate degree from Connecticut College and her master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
Vitali is a Segment Producer for Chicago Tonight, with Arts & Culture as his main focus. A native of Philadelphia, he's lived in Cook County for 25 years and is a 22-year veteran of WTTW-Channel 11. His stories and profiles have appeared on "Wild Chicago," "The Golden Apple Awards," and "Artbeat Chicago." He's won 5 Midwest Emmy Awards, including the inaugural Emmy in the category Best Magazine Segment for a story on the Art Institute's Thorne Rooms. He's also an Arts Journalism Fellow with the USC Annenberg School of Journalism in Los Angeles and the recipient of a Peter Lisagor Award from the Chicago Headline Club. His enthusiasms include musical theater, old horror movies, thrift shopping, WFMT, photographer Robert Capa, Bruce Springsteen, "Moby Dick," Bob Fosse, Looney Tunes, his dog Umberto, and his wife and three children.
Yasmin Tara Rammohan is the Interactive Content Producer for Chicago Tonight. She joined the team in January 2011. Prior to that, she worked as a Web Producer for CBS Chicago. Rammohan received her Master of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 2007; and her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from UCLA in 2001.
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