(CHICAGO)— As the Chicago Journalists Association celebrates its 85th anniversary, the organization announced Monday that Chicago-based journalists Nell Salzman, Stacy St. Clair and Michele Weldon have been selected as finalists for its $1,000 Dorothy Storck Award.
Work by the three was considered the best of this year’s entries by judges affiliated with Stony Brook University. Salzman and St. Clair are being recognized for work published in the Chicago Tribune. Weldon is being recognized for work published via AARP website “The Ethel” and in West Suburban Living magazine.
Only one will take home the $1,000 prize at CJA’s 85th Anniversary Awards Ceremony on FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 6:30-9:30PM, in Ruggles Hall of the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St. Tickets are $100 for non-journalists and $85 for journalists, and can be purchased online via Eventbrite.
Unlike other award competitions, the Dorothy Storck Award is unique in annually honoring two second-place winners, as the work of these journalists is too critical to judge slight differences in style.
Named for Dorothy Storck, the late syndicated newspaper columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner who passed away in August 2015, the monetary prize traditionally honored the best of the best in commentary/op-ed. The family of the longtime CJA member and her partner, former University of Illinois Chicago political science professor Dick Simpson, established the annual award in 2017 to honor a columnist sharing Storck’s dedication, impact and commitment to craft.
However, newsroom employees — including columnists — have been steadily declining at newspapers and magazines across the country. To combat the downsizing and constriction of the news industry, the Chicago Journalists Association revised the contest last year to honor the best work produced by a woman, trans, femme or nonbinary (WTFNB) journalist in the Chicagoland area. The organization says the new focus further highlights Storck as a trailblazer, serving as a U.S. Air Force squadron commander and holding the rank of major before becoming a journalist.
Previous winners include Duaa Eldeib, ProPublica (2023), Ismael Pérez, Chicago Sun-Times (2022); Deborah Douglas, The Emancipator (2021); Dahleen Glanton, Chicago Tribune (2020); Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune (2019); Mark Brown, Chicago Sun-Times (2018); and Rex Huppke, Chicago Tribune (2017).
Taking home past finalist awards were Natasha Korecki and Scott Jacobs of online news sites Politico and The Week Behind (2017); Mick Dumke and Deborah Douglas of online news sites ProPublica Illinois and The Chicago Reporter (2018); Barry Rozner and Natalie Moore of The Daily Herald and WBEZ Chicago (2019); Burt Constable and Laura Washington of The Daily Herald and ABC 7 Chicago/Chicago Sun-Times (2020); John W. Fountain and Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times (2021); Rummana Hussain and Lynn Sweet for columns published in the Chicago Sun-Times (2022); as well Maya Dukmasova of Injustice Watch and Sylvia Snowden of CAN TV (2023).
Headlining the Nov. 15 ceremony will be keynote speaker Mackenzie Warren, director of Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism’s Local News Accelerator. Under his leadership, the accelerator has worked with an array of local news organizations, including the Chicago Sun-Times, WBEZ, WTTW and the Chicago Reader.
As part of the Local News Accelerator, Warren founded the Media Innovation & Leadership Academy, or MILA, a program that nurtures the next generation of diverse leadership in Chicago-area journalism. He is also working to develop a five-year plan for the Chicago chapter of Press Forward, a nationwide philanthropic project that will bring $1 billion into the local news ecosystem by 2030.
Warren previously held executive roles at the USA TODAY Network/Gannett, the Detroit Free Press, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Arizona Republic, Cincinnati Enquirer, The Courier Journal in Louisville, The Tennessean in Nashville and others through their transition to consumer-supported businesses.
Hosting the 85th annual event will be Regina Waldroup, a reporter with NBC 5 Chicago. She joined the news team in 2013 as a general assignment reporter and started at the station as an intern for now-retired investigative reporter Renee Ferguson. Waldroup has also worked at CBS, NBC and Fox news stations in Oregon and New York, and she is an adjunct journalism instructor at Columbia College Chicago and the College of DuPage.
The awards ceremony will also honor two veteran journalists with its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award – former Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Mary Mitchell, and former Block Club Chicago senior editor of investigations, Curtis Lawrence. WGN TV general assignment reporter Mike Lowe will also be recognized as Chicago Journalist of the Year.
Mitchell’s career spanned more than 30 years at the Chicago Sun-Times, and Lawrence dedicated nearly 45 years to the craft of journalism, most recently at Block Club Chicago and previously at six Midwest daily newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune.
Lowe has received dozens of awards, including 38 Emmy awards, 120 Emmy nominations, four regional Edward R. Murrow Awards and a national Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in TV Political Journalism. He will be recognized not only for his range of work but also his ability to use his journalistic voice to educate and inspire others with his journey in battling Stage 3 colon cancer, which he revealed to viewers earlier this year.
Also being honored are 19 winners of the Sarah Brown Boyden Awards, selected as the best work this year in categories that range from arts and features to investigations, photography and sports. One of those 19 winners will take home a $500 prize awarded to the best of the best. Finalists will be announced later this week.
Nell Salzman
Nell Salzman is a reporter with the Chicago Tribune, specializing in immigration and policy. She is originally from Denver, Colorado and attended Brown University. She previously worked at KTNA radio in Talkeetna, Alaska and Westword in Denver. She’s worked with UNICEF, nonprofit organizations in Nicaragua and Ecuador and has spent significant time volunteering at the border. She has been a finalist for the Livingston, an award from the University of Michigan’s Wallace House Center for Journalists that honors outstanding achievements in local, national and international reporting for journalists under the age of 35.
Stacy St. Clair
Stacy St. Clair is a senior reporter at the Chicago Tribune, where she has covered a wide range of topics, including sexual assaults on college campuses, five Olympic Games and political corruption throughout Illinois. In 2022, she co-reported and co-hosted the award- winning podcast “Unsealed: The Tylenol Murders.” Named the Illinois Reporter of the Year in 2020, St. Clair’s work has been honored by Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation; the National Headliner Awards; the Society for Professional Journalists; the Hearst Foundation and the Chicago Bar Association, among others. Before joining the Tribune, St. Clair covered local government and crime for the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago. Her work also has appeared in the Dayton Daily News and The Topeka Capital-Journal. She has a bachelor’s of journalism degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, with minors in American politics and Spanish.
Michele Weldon
Michele Weldon is an award-winning author, journalist, TEDx speaker and emerita faculty at Northwestern University, where she taught on the graduate and undergraduate levels for 18 years. A senior leader with The OpEd Project since 2011, her work has appeared in the New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek, Guardian, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Huffington Post, NBC, Forbes, MSNBC, Salon, Chicago Sun-Times and more. She has been a regular columnist with West Suburban Living magazine for more than 25 years. Her seventh nonfiction book, The Time We Have: Essays on Pandemic Living was released in July, 2024. Her 2020 book, Act Like You’re Having A Good Time, won the 2021 Independent Publishers Award for nonfiction essays. She has written chapters in seven anthologies.