The Chicago Reporter has won the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2011 Sigma Delta Chi Awards for journalism, a long-standing and prestigious national award, for its work that revealed the way public housing residents are being kicked out by the Chicago Housing Authority’s One Strike policy. Named for the award are Reporter Angela Caputo and Editor Kimbriell Kelly.
The story, “One and Done” [September/October 2011], found that from 2005 to 2010, the CHA opened 1,390 eviction cases based on a single arrest—even when the crime was committed by their children, anyone else living in the unit or even a guest. The vast majority of them—86 percent in 2010—had nothing to do with the primary leaseholder.
Winners were chosen from more than 1,700 entries. The awards recognize outstanding work produced last year in print, radio, television and online. Other winners include The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times.
The Reporter also received 14 nominations in the Chicago Headline Club’s Peter Lisagor Awards for Exemplary Journalism, given in honor of Peter Lisagor, who earned a national reputation in reporting as the Washington bureau chief of the Chicago Daily News from 1959 to 1976, and for appearances on “Meet the Press,” “Face the Nation” and “Washington Week in Review.”
This is the highest number of Lisagor nominations the Reporter has received. The staff has been nominated for best investigation, business reporting, in-depth news, blog, multimedia, photography, design and graphics.
This is the first year that the Reporter has been nominated in public affairs for TV and radio. The Barber Shop Show—a collaboration between the Reporter and Chicago Public Media’s Vocalo station—earned a nomination for best public affairs radio for a segment on the CHA’s One Strike policy. The Reporter also won the Lisagor outright in best TV public affairs programming for the show “Living with ADHD,” produced on the weekly public affairs show Perspective on WPWR.
Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony May 4.