CJA will host Building an Impactful & Award-Winning Journalism Career: A Panel Conversation with Winners of the Dorothy Storck Award on April 9.

NEWS RELEASE 

MEDIA ADVISORY 

CONTACT: Jean Hodges and Alexandria Jacobson, Co-Presidents

president@chicagojournalists.net

CHICAGO — The Chicago Journalists Association, one of the oldest journalism organizations in the city, received a historic gift to continue the legacy of the Dorothy Storck Award, honoring the late trailblazing Pulitzer Prize winner.

Dick Simpson, former professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Storck’s partner, established the award in 2017 and recently contributed $10,000 to continue the award honoring journalists who share the dedication, impact and commitment to craft of Storck, the syndicated newspaper columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner who died in August 2015.

“Dorothy Storck was a hero who broke glass ceilings — a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who for more than four decades wrote about emotional truth and meaning for her newspaper readers,” Simpson said.

In recognition of this new investment in the Dorothy Storck Award, CJA will host a panel discussion at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 9, with premier Chicago-area journalists about Building an Impactful & Award-Winning Journalism Career.

The event will feature the four most recent grand prize winners of the prestigious Dorothy Storck Award:

• Duaa Eldeib, ProPublica (2023 winner)
• Brandis Friedman, WTTW (2025 winner)
• Ismael Pérez, Investigative Project on Race and Equity (2022 winner)
• Nell Salzman, The New York Times, Local Investigations Fellow (2024 winner)

The event will be moderated by Deborah Douglas, senior lecturer and founding director of the Medill Solutions Journalism Hub at Northwestern University. Douglas won the Dorothy Storck Award in 2021.

As CJA enters its 10th year of presenting the Dorothy Storck Award, the event will allow the Chicago journalism community an opportunity to network and learn from top local journalists about their career journeys and how they create journalism with influence. 

“Every year, the Chicago Journalists Association receives truly impressive and inspiring applications for the Dorothy Storck Award, and we are humbled and grateful for the generous gift to continue offering this prestigious honor for years to come,” said CJA Co-Presidents Jean Hodges and Alexandria Jacobson in a statement.

“We look forward to hosting an uplifting and engaging event for our local journalists and supporters in memory of such a courageous and pioneering journalist.” 

Sponsored by the Northwestern-Medill Local News Accelerator, the event will be held at the school’s Chicago newsroom at 303 E. Wacker Drive. Pizza and pop will be provided.

The event is free for CJA members, and tickets cost $15 for non-members. 

CJA memberships start at $15.

ABOUT THE DOROTHY STORCK AWARD

Named for Dorothy Storck, the late syndicated newspaper columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner who passed away in August 2015, the $1,000 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 at 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. 

CJA revised the contest to honor the best work produced by a woman, trans, femme or nonbinary (WTFNB) journalist in the Chicagoland area. This 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. 

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 not to be recognized for their impact.

SPEAKER BIOS

Deborah Douglas (Moderator)

Deborah D. Douglas is founding director of the Medill Solutions Journalism Hub and a faculty member at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications. This award-winning author of The U.S. Civil Rights Trail: A Traveler’s Guide to the People, Places, and Events That Made the Movement penned the first-ever travel guide to follow the official civil rights trail in the South. She received the Society of American Travel Writers 2021 Guidebook of the Year Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award and a Studs Terkel Award.

Duaa Eldeib

Duaa Eldeib is a reporter at ProPublica whose work has examined the systemic failures that led to a stillbirth crisis in the U.S. She was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2023, and again in 2025 for reporting with three other reporters on mental health care. Her reporting has also sparked government reform and has led to the release of young men incarcerated as juveniles then sent to adult prison for minor offenses. Earlier, she and two Chicago Tribune colleagues were named finalists for a Pulitzer for work uncovering assault and sexual abuse of children at residential treatment centers. She received a bachelor’s from University of Missouri and a master’s from Northwestern.

Brandis Friedman 

Brandis Friedman is the Alexandra and John Nichole chief correspondent and anchor of “Chicago Tonight” on Chicago’s PBS affiliate, WTTW. She joined the newsroom as a correspondent in 2013. Since then, her reporting on education and criminal justice has appeared on PBS’s “NewsHour” and NPR’s “The Takeaway.” Friedman has also worked as a reporter and anchor for WBBM Newsradio 780 and as a producer/reporter for WJLA-TV/ABC-7 in Washington, D.C. She’s earned multiple regional Emmy Awards.

Ismael Pérez

Ismael Pérez is a digital journalist and a national award-winning columnist. He was social media editor at the San Antonio Express-News before working at the Chicago Sun-Times as an audience engagement specialist, editorial board member and columnist from October 2019 to March 2025. Ismael is now the director of audience engagement at the Investigative Project on Race and Equity.

Nell Salzman

Nell Salzman is a local investigative fellow with the New York Times, working on a year-long story about development in Chicago. She previously covered immigration and education at the Chicago Tribune, where she was a 2024 Livingston Award finalist for her reporting on a Venezuelan migrant family’s journey from El Paso to Chicago. She has also worked at KTNA Radio in Talkeetna, Alaska, and Westword in Denver. She is originally from Denver, Colorado, and attended Brown University.

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.

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