Longtime Chicago Journalist, Carol Marin surprised her co-workers by announcing that she will step down as political editor at NBC-owned WMAQ and correspondent for “Chicago Tonight” at WTTW after she covers the presidential election November 3.

“It’s time to get off the stage,” Marin told Robert Feder. “Everybody needs to know the time for the last performance. I’ve had a great run, but I want to walk off the news stage when I feel great about it still, when I’ve got great relationships still, and when I feel the work is solid. I always wanted to be the one to decide the time, and I’m grateful to be able to do that.

“I’m not calling it a retirement, but it is a changing of chapters.”

“Carol’s journalistic standards have set the bar high for our newsroom,” said David Doebler, GM of WMAQ.

Feder writes that Marin made national headlines in 1997 when she and longtime co-anchor Ron Magers resigned to protest the hiring of talk show host Jerry Springer as a commentator on the 10 p.m. newscast at WMAQ.

That move of hiring Springer was spearheaded by then WMAQ News Director Joel Cheatwood. Yes, the same Joel Cheatwood that guided the Tegna stations down the dark path.

Years later (2004) Marin was hired back at the station as an Investigative Reporter