Mike Parker (reporter)
Michael J. Fishel (born September 27, 1943), known professionally as Mike Parker, is a former news anchor and a longtime reporter for WBBM-TV in Chicago.
Early life and education
A native of Rock Island, Illinois, Parker earned a degree from Los Angeles City College.[1]
Professional career
Parker worked as the news director and as a reporter for KFI-AM radio in Los Angeles from 1969 until 1972. He also worked as an anchor, investigative reporter and general assignment reporter at KNXT-TV (now KCBS-TV) in Los Angeles, from 1977 until 1980.[1]
In January 1980, Parker joined WBBM-TV in Chicago as a weekend news anchor and weekday general assignment reporter. He remained at WBBM-TV until 1985, when he chose not to renew his contract in order to join his wife, Mary Nissenson, who was working as a reporter for WABC-TV in New York. Parker then joined WABC himself as a general assignment reporter, remaining in New York until late 1986, when he returned to WBBM-TV as a weekend anchor. In 1987, Nissenson returned to Chicago, taking a reporting and substitute anchor job at WBBM-TV herself.[1][2]
In 1992, Parker was demoted as weekend news anchor and was replaced by Jay Levine. "While I can't say I am delighted - because I thought I was doing a pretty darn good job - I don't think Chicago has heard the last of me yet," Parker told the Chicago Sun-Times in an article that appeared on February 4, 1992. "It's not the end of an era. Who knows what the future will hold? I'm certainly not a dead man."
Since 1992, Parker has occasionally filled in as a news anchor where needed. However, the bulk of his job has involved being one of WBBM's star reporters, including on the ill-fated non-tabloid 10 p.m. newscast anchored by Carol Marin that ran for nine months in 2000.
On October 7, 2008, Parker interviewed Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, asking the governor, "Don't you sometimes feel that you're a character in an Edgar Allan Poe story, that the walls are closing in somehow?"[3]
Parker currently has been at WBBM-TV longer than any other full-time on-air personality.
Personal
Parker and his first wife, television news anchor and reporter Mary Nissenson, divorced in 1989. Parker married his second wife, Marian Ambrose, in 1992. They live in the Beverly neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.
Parker was off the air for an extended period in 2001 after undergoing coronary bypass surgery and related complications. He eventually made a full recovery.