Mark Brown biography

Mark Brown started writing his four-day-a-week column on page two of the Chicago Sun-Times in September 2000. Brown, 50 (DOB 2/26/55), joined the Sun-Times in 1982 as a general assignment reporter. He spent most of his career covering politics and government and working as an investigative reporter. Brown has been cited by Chicago Magazine as the best news columnist in the city and won first place for column writing in the 2003 Illinois Associated Press Editors Association News contest. Prior to joining the Sun-Times, he worked four years for the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa.

Brown grew up in Washington, Ill., near Peoria. He graduated from Northern Illinois University in 1977 and attended the Public Affairs Reporting Program at Sangamon State University, now the University of Illinois at Springfield. Brown and his wife, Hanke Gratteau, an editor at the Chicago Tribune, reside in Oak Park with their twin sons.