Renee Ferguson, longtime Chicago television investigative reporter, dies at 75

Former WBBM-TV reporter Renee Ferguson has died at the age of 75.

Ferguson died Friday, June 6. She had been in hospice care, according to multiple reports.

Ferguson was the first African American woman to work as an investigative reporter in Chicago television. She was also a longtime member of the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Ferguson was born Aug. 22, 1949, in Oklahoma City, according to the HistoryMakers. She was named most likely to be a journalist even in junior high school, Indiana University noted.

Ferguson covered student unrest at Jackson State and Kent State universities while attending Indiana University, and also worked as a student intern with the Washington Post in 1970, according to IU. She earned her bachelor's degree from IU in 1971.

After graduating, Ferguson worked as a writer for The Indianapolis Star and a reporter for WLWI-TV in Indianapolis, IU reported.

Ferguson worked as an investigative reporter for CBS Chicago from 1977 to 1983. Among Ferguson's best-known works at Channel 2 was an investigative report that called into question the methods and results of celebrated Chicago educator and Westside Preparatory School founder Marva Collins.

A few years before that, Ferguson went undercover as a 17-year-old student for a series of Channel 2 News reports on Waller High School — now Lincoln Park High School — and its student body that at the time came largely from the Cabrini-Green public housing development. CBS Chicago records note that Ferguson's 1977 series on Waller High School led to calls for a new principal for the school.

"In order to go undercover as a high school student, a reporter — especially a television reporter — has to be new in town, and I had been in Chicago for just more than a month when I went to Waller High School," Ferguson said as she accepted an Emmy Award for her reporting on Waller High in 1978.

In her speech, Ferguson thanked the students at Waller, "who I believe in their hearts probably knew my secret, but who dared to share their secrets with me."

Ferguson also hosted the public affairs show "Common Ground" at CBS Chicago.

In 1983, Ferguson went to work as a correspondent for network CBS News. She returned to Chicago in 1987 as an investigative reporter for WMAQ-TV, and she went on to spend the bulk of her career at the NBC station.

Ferguson reported for NBC 5 until retiring in 2008.

Among her best-known reports there was an investigation of strip searches of women of color by U.S. Customs officials at O'Hare International Airport. She also discovered the case of Tyrone Hood, a man wrongfully convicted of the 1993 murder of Illinois Institute of Technology basketball standout Marshall Morgan Jr., and became an advocate for Hood even after she retired, IU noted.

Ferguson lobbied then-Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn to pardon Hood, and Quinn did so just before leaving office in 2015, IU noted.

Ferguson won seven Chicago Emmy Awards, the DuPont Award, the Gracie Award, and the Associated Press Award for Best Investigative Reporting, among other honors.

"Renee Ferguson left an incredible echo in our newsroom that still rings through the DNA of our investigative journalism, and that legacy will continue," said Kevin Cross, president and general manager of NBCU Local Chicago.