Jackie Bensen is a general assignment reporter for News4. She specializes in reporting breaking news, mostly for News4 at 11.
Bensen joined News4 in 1999 after spending 12 years at WTTG-TV in a variety of roles including news writer, special projects producer and, for the last few years, general assignment reporter. She has also worked for Media General's cable channel and in the Washington Bureau of Outlet Communications.
Bensen is frequently called upon to speak at community and public safety events. She has been a guest lecturer at the FBI's National Training Academy in Quantico. She has also served as grand marshal of the Montgomery County Humane Society's Walk in the Park and the City of Rockville Memorial Day Parade.
A Philadelphia native, Bensen came to Washington to attend American University where she earned a Master's Degree in Journalism and Public Affairs. She has an undergraduate degree in English Literature from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa.
Bensen and her family live in Montgomery County.
The Latest
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2 PGCPS students died from flu
Two Prince George’s County Public School students died from the flu, the school district superintendent confirmed to News4. The students attended CMIT North Elementary School in Laurel and John Bayne Elementary School in Capitol Heights. A third student also died recently, but it’s unclear if it was from the flu. “It’s disheartening to lose any family member, but we’re...
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‘Just following Hispanic people': Citizen detained by ICE questions vote for Trump
A naturalized Hispanic man says he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who were looking for another person on a deportation order, and now the man is questioning his vote for President Donald Trump. Jensy Machado said he is a U.S. citizen and provided News4 documentation of his legal status. Machado said he was driving to work...
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DC mayor to remove Black Lives Matter Plaza amid pressure from White House
A spokesperson for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed to NBC Washington that the Black Lives Matter Plaza will be rennamed. There’s no timeline yet for the change.
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‘He took the best part of my life away': Mother grieves son's murder at White Oak carryout
“It was the hardest thing of my life.” Sheila Caldwell spoke about days spent sitting through the trial of Markus Dowdy, 34, of Silver Spring, listening as prosecutors described a previous dispute between Dowdy and her late son Marvin Jefferson, also 34. They got into a fistfight where Jefferson allegedly got the better of Dowdy, and video of the fight…
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MCPS rallies for fully funded schools amid Maryland budget deficit
At a rally in Rockville Thursday night, public school teachers, administrators and the head of the Montgomery County School Board advocated for full funding of next year’s school budget after the governor called for a slowdown of spending for Fiscal Year 2026. “Montgomery County has long believed in the promise of public education and in the promise of our students,”…
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Rockville man charged with raping 9-year-old girl
A Rockville man was arrested on charges that accuse him of raping a 9-year-old girl after she took trash to a bin outside her home. Charging documents in the arrest of 37-year-old Wilmer Alvarado Gomez accuse him of approaching the girl at about 7 p.m. last Thursday. She was playing outside a home on Parkland Drive in Rockville’s Wheaton...
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Great-grandfather, 86, missing in Maryland for 3 weeks
An 86-year-old Charles County man has been missing since going for his afternoon walk in chilly weather three weeks ago. LaWan Bowman said she kept her father, Richard Wilson Jr., on the phone for hours when he didn’t return home Jan. 25, trying to get him to describe his whereabouts as police from four agencies frantically searched for him on…
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Shen Yun will have extra security at Kennedy Center after bomb threat
Extra security will be on hand for upcoming performances by the Shen Yun Performing Arts Company at the Kennedy Center after a bomb threat against the group. A threatening email claimed a bomb had been placed in the theater and would be detonated should Shen Yun be allowed to perform, according to the group’s spokesperson. Nothing was found. Thursday’s...
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1 dead after 2 unrelated shootings involving DC police in Northwest
D.C. police were involved in two unrelated shootings in less than a two-block stretch of Georgia Avenue NW on Tuesday evening, with one leaving a man dead, authorities say. A man died after he crashed into a police cruiser, tried to take an officer’s gun and then tried to carjack a woman at knifepoint, police said. Investigators describing the...
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‘Disappointing': Fired NIH worker trained others hired in disability inclusion program
D.C. resident Bobby Whalen was a proud probationary employee of the National Institutes of Health. He lost his job Friday night along with what is believed to be more than 1,000 other NIH probationary employees. It was a vital job: making sure operating room instruments and equipment were clean and free of germs that could negatively affect the outcome of…
