(CHICAGO) — Longtime CBS News Chicago personality Jim Williams will receive the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, and Jake Wittich, managing editor of Windy City Times, will be recognized as Chicago Journalist of the Year at the Chicago Journalists Association’s (CJA) annual awards ceremony, the organization announced Monday.
As one of the oldest organizations of journalists in Chicago, CJA will be presenting its 86th Anniversary Awards Ceremony on FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, from 6:30-9:30 p.m. 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.
Annually recognizing excellence in Chicago journalism through several prestigious award competitions — including the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Dorothy Storck Award — the event is regularly attended by senior leadership, veteran reporters, columnists, and editors at Chicago’s print, broadcast, and digital news outlets.
CJA’s Lifetime Achievement Award annually honors an Illinois journalist exemplifying the highest levels of career achievement, courage and tenacity. Winners additionally personify the age-old journalistic mantra of using their gifts of pen and microphone to provide a voice for the voiceless.
This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Williams, a CBS News Chicago contributor and former co-anchor, whose journalism career spans nearly five decades. A native of Chicago’s South Side, Williams began his career at WGN-TV, where he worked as a newswriter, producer and reporter. Among his many roles, he covered city and state politics, including the 1989 mayoral race that Richard M. Daley won.
A lifelong learner dedicated to honing his craft, Williams went on to serve as press secretary for Daley from 1992 to 1997, supervising media relations throughout Chicago’s government, and an ABC News correspondent, reporting across the country for “World News Tonight with Peter Jennings” and “Good Morning America.”
In 2002, he joined CBS News Chicago, where he spent most of his time as a reporter and worked his way up to co-anchor the 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekday newscasts. Earlier this year, he announced he was stepping back from his daily anchor duties but would continue contributing occasional pieces for CBS. Williams has received numerous journalism awards, including two Emmys, and he was inducted into the National Television Academy of Arts & Sciences’ Silver Circle in 2018 for his lifetime of work in Chicago television.
In addition to the Lifetime Achievement Award, CJA will honor an individual with the coveted title of Chicago Journalist of the Year. The award recognizes a local journalist who has produced exemplary work throughout the year. This year’s recipient is Jake Wittich, managing editor at Windy City Times, Chicago’s legacy LGBTQ+ news outlet, which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary.
Wittich has led the revitalization of the publication’s digital strategy by launching its email newsletter operation — growing from zero newsletters in 2024 to a suite of four and counting. He also regularly contributes in-depth reporting on Chicago’s LGBTQ+ community, covering issues ranging from transgender health care access and LGBTQ+ policy in the mayor’s office to the local impact of federal government actions.
Wittich’s work is rooted in community engagement, and he is passionate about ensuring LGBTQ+ media coverage reflects the full diversity and experiences of the community. He also serves as president of the Chicago chapter of NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, where he builds community among queer journalists and allies through networking events, panel discussions and professional training opportunities.
Next year will mark a decade since Wittich began his journalism career as a City Desk intern at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he continues to contribute as a freelance reporter. He previously spent four years at Block Club Chicago as a Report for America fellow, covering the city’s North Side and leading the launch of its LGBTQ+ news micro-site, Proud City.
Headlining the Nov. 14 event will be keynote speaker Tracy Baim, executive director of Press Forward Chicago, a collaborative fund housed at the Chicago Community Trust that is dedicated to strengthening local news organizations as they work towards long-term sustainability.
Baim has worked in community media since 1984 and co-founded Windy City Times in 1985. Prior to joining Press Forward Chicago, she served as publisher of the Chicago Reader, where she led the publication’s shift to a nonprofit business model to broaden its revenue sources.
Baim has won numerous LGBTQ+ and journalism awards, including Lifetime Achievement Awards from CJA (2022) and the Chicago Headline Club (2013). She is also a Studs Terkel Award winner and has been inducted into several halls of fame. She has authored/co-authored 14 books, including her most recent, “Liberating Healthcare,” a biography of Howard Brown Health at 50 years.
Additionally, one lucky woman-presenting journalist in the Chicago area will take home the $1,000 prize in the Dorothy Storck Award competition, named for the late syndicated newspaper columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner who died in August 2015. Three Dorothy Storck Award finalists will be announced next week.
A longtime member of the 86-year-old CJA, Storck’s family and her partner, former University of Illinois Chicago Political Science Professor Dick Simpson, in 2017 established the annual award to honor a Chicago area print, broadcast, or digital journalist sharing Storck’s dedication, impact, and commitment to craft.
Also being honored at the awards ceremony 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. Sarah Brown Boyden Award finalists will be announced the week before the awards ceremony. Join the Chicago Journalists Association and an audience of local purveyors of journalism for this annual celebration, where we will hear from Williams, Wittich, Baim and the Dorothy Storck Award winners.
For tickets: https://bit.ly/cjaawards2025
For more information: chicagocja@gmail.com or 773-789-9488.
ABOUT CJA
The Chicago Journalists Association is a nonprofit organization boasting a storied membership of active/veteran print, broadcast, and digital journalists, media and communications professionals, associated journalism educators, and college journalism students in Illinois/Northwest Indiana. CJA’s core mission is the advocacy and rewarding of journalistic excellence through prestigious journalism award competitions; professional development of our members through ongoing training and newsmaker forums on industry issues; and support and mentoring of the next generation of journalists.