NBC ANCHOR ROB STAFFORD AND SUN-TIMES
COLUMNIST MICHAEL SNEED TO BE HONORED
Washington Post correspondent Souad Mekhennet
12th recipient of Daniel Pearl Award
Chicago – Two Chicago-area journalists and a Washington Post correspondent are to be honored at the Chicago Journalists
Association ‘s 78th annual dinner at the Union League Club Chicago, 65 W. Jackson Blvd., Friday evening, November 10, 2017. They include NBC5 News anchor Rob Stafford, Sun-Times gossip columnist Michael Sneed and Washington Post security correspondent and author Souad Mekhennet.
Stafford is to be recipient of the CJA Comeback of the Year Award, while Sneed is presented the Lifetime Achievement Award. Mekhennet flies in from Frankfurt, Germany for the organization’s 12th annual Daniel Pearl Award.
Stafford was chosen because of successfully overcoming a life-threatening illness and has recently returned to resume his duties at NBC 5 News. He joined NBC5 News as weekend anchor and reporter In 2007 and moved to his present position in 2009, alongside Allison Rosati. Prior to moving to Chicago he was correspondent for news magazine Dateline NBC. A former award-winning investigative reporter, he has been recipient of numerous journalism awards.
Sneed left the Chicago Tribune and joined the Sun-Times in 1985. The high-profile columnist was named CJA Journalist of the Year in 2004 and has been referred to by radio and TV columnist Robert Feder as “among Chicago’s most powerful women journalists.
”Child of a Moroccan father and Turkish mother, Mekhennet was born in Germany and is the first Muslim journalist to receive the 12th annual Daniel Pear Award. She was chosen by Dan’s parents, Ruth and Judea, who founded the Daniel Pearl Foundation shortly after the Wall Street Journal reporter was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in early 2002. “The Pearl Foundation is proud to join the Chicago Journalists Association in honoring Souad Mekhennet in her one-woman effort to penetrate the secrecy wall surrounding ISIS operatives. Souad best exemplifies Daniel’s spirit of courage and integrity, as well as his uncompromising commitment to the pursuit of truth.”
Winner of the $1,000 Dorothy Storck Columnist Award will be announced the same evening. Storck was a former syndicated newspaper columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner who died in August, 2015. She began her career at the Chicago American, which later became known as Chicago Today. She ended her career at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Storck was also a U.S. squadron commander and held the rank of Major before becoming a journalist. Her family and fiancé, University of Illinois at Chicago professor Dick Simpson established the award in her honor and will make the presentation.
For further information contact the Chicago Journalists Association Hotline (312) 458-9792.
Click here to purchase tickets
Tickets: $99 for area journalists; $125 each; $1,200 for tables of 8; $1,500 for tables of 10.
Checks should be made payable to the Chicago Journalists Association and mailed to
1800 Nations Drive, Suite 117, Gurnee, IL 60031