Maki Becker is a senior reporter at WKBW 7 News. She joined 7 News in January as part of the E.W. Scripps Journalism Journey Initiative through which veteran print journalists learn how to become visual storytellers.
Maki was born in Japan and grew up in Los Angeles. She graduated from Oberlin College after which she embarked on a career in newspapers. She started out as a fact checker at the LA Weekly and then became a stringer for the Los Angeles Times, working in the Valley Edition and the Metro Edition, covering education and community issues.
She next became a staff reporter at The Charlotte Observer in Charlotte, N.C., covering community news in Cabarrus County and then transferring to the main office as a night cops reporter.
In 1999, she became a staff reporter at the New York Daily News. She worked in the Queens Bureau and then the main office as a general assignment reporter and on the rewrite desk. She spent months covering the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York City.
In 2005, she came to Buffalo which has become her hometown. She worked for 18 years at The Buffalo News, covering crime and breaking news. In 2015, she was part of the staff who were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in the category of breaking news for coverage of a massive snowstorm.
Maki lives in Buffalo with her husband and two sons.
She is excited to be building on her decades-long experience as a newspaper reporter and learning the craft of video journalism, all while having the privilege of telling the stories of the people of Western New York.
