(CHICAGO)— Chicago area columnists Mark Brown, Deborah Douglas and Mick Dumke are finalists for the Chicago Journalists Association’s 2018 Dorothy Storck Award, a $1,000 prize, the organization announced Monday.
Columns by the three — Brown, a longtime Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Douglas, a freelance columnist being recognized for work for the Chicago Reporter and VICE News, and Dumke, a columnist with ProPublica, IL — were considered by judges the best of this year’s entries.
Only one will take home the $1,000 prize at the Dorothy Storck Award Luncheon, scheduled for Noon-2PM Saturday, Nov. 3rd, at Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery, 1 W. Grand Ave.
Tickets are available here: http://www.chicagojournalists.net/donations/
The award is named for the late Storck, a former syndicated newspaper columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winner who passed in August 2015.
A longtime member of the 79-year-old CJA, Storck began her journalism career at the Chicago American, which later became known as Chicago Today, and ended her career at the Philadelphia Inquirer. She was a U.S. Air Force squadron commander who held the rank of major before becoming a journalist.
Storck’s family and her fiancé, University of Illinois at Chicago Political Science Professor Dick Simpson, last year established the annual award to honor a Chicago area Print, Broadcast or Digital columnist sharing Storck’s dedication, impact and commitment to craft.
Chicago Tribune Columnist Rex Huppke last year took home the inaugural award at CJA’s annual banquet, where Sarah Boyden Award winners were also celebrated.
This year’s Storck award, for best News or Features column published July 2017 to July 2018, will be presented at the newly dedicated luncheon, featuring two co-keynote speakers who created news in the past year with the sale of the Chicago Reader: STM Reader Chairman Dorothy Leavell, and Chicago Sun-Times CEO Edwin Eisendrath.
- Leavell in late 2018 became Chairman of the Board of STM Reader, LLC, publishers of the Chicago Reader Newspaper. Since 1968, Dorothy Leavell has served as editor and publisher of the Crusader Newspaper Group. She is also Chairman of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the nation’s only Black newspapertrade organization.
- Eisendrath in 2017 led the effort to save the Chicago Sun-Times from being purchased by the parent company of the Chicago Tribune and is now CEO of Sun-Times Media. In his first year at the helm of the company, his group re-branded the paper, restructured the business, improved company finances, while investing more in journalism.
The two will provide industry perspectives, and speak on the course of the Sun-Times and Reader that led to this development on Chicago’s media landscape, as well as vision for their individual organizations.
For Tickets/More Information: 773-789-9488.