Kimbriell Kelly and Alden Loury participated in Chicago Public Media’s coverage of the Global Activism Expo on April 30. The broadcast was simulcast on WBEZ, 91.5 FM, and Vocalo, 89.5 FM. The two-hour broadcast featured interviews and commentary from Chicagoans involved in relief and advocacy efforts around the globe.
In May, The Chicago Reporter captured four awards at the 2010 Peter S. Lisagor Awards, sponsored by the Chicago Headline Club—the Chicago chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Kelly Virella and Kelly won a Lisagor award for their multimedia collaboration with Natalie Moore of WBEZ on “Taser timeout,” an examination of excessive Taser use at a Kankakee County jail where Cook County detainees are often sent. Angela Caputo, Kelly and Alissa Groeninger won a Lisagor award for their investigation “17”—an examination of 15-, 16- and 17-year olds prosecuted as adults, mostly for nonviolent offenses. Joe Gallo, Jon Lowenstein and Mark Abramson won for their photography on the “17” investigation. Christine Wachter won a Lisagor award for graphics documenting the path teens take from juvenile to adult court, the millions of dollars spent on job training yielding meager results and the overrepresentation of black youth in the child welfare system.
In June, Caputo and Kelly were awarded a 2011 Salute to Excellence Award from the National Association of Black Journalists for “Stolen futures,” an investigative package of stories revealing that hundreds of Chicago youth are being sentenced to years in prison with adults for low-level crimes. The investigation appeared in the September/October 2010 edition.
Kelly was listed among Chicago magazine’s additions to media columnist Robert Feder’s list of the most powerful women in Chicago journalism.
Kelly also served as the emcee for the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law’s Benefit Performance honoring Deborah Harrington, former president of the Woods Fund of Chicago, and featuring Samantha Bee of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” The benefit was held May 20.
The Reporter is proud to announce the hiring of María Inés Zamudio to cover health, immigration and labor. She has been working at daily newspapers in California since she graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and minor in Latin American Studies. She is a reporter and blogger with experience in audio/video editing and computer-assisted reporting. She is also a 2007 Chips Quinn Scholar, a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and a founding member of that organization’s student chapter at U. of I.