CHICAGO — Journalists Francia Garcia Hernandez, Christy Gutowski and Mary Wisniewski have been selected as finalists for the Chicago Journalists Association’s prestigious Dorothy Storck Award, the organization announced Tuesday.

Their work was considered the best of this year’s entries by judges affiliated with SUNY Old Westbury, a university on Long Island, New York. Garcia Hernandez is being recognized for work with Block Club Chicago, while Gutowski is being recognized for work with the Chicago Tribune and Wisniewski for work she did for Newcity. 

Only one will take home the $1,000 prize at CJA’s 87th Anniversary Awards Ceremony, presented by the Field Foundation. The event will be held on Friday, Nov. 13, 6:30-9:30 p.m., at the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St., Chicago. Tickets are $100 for non-journalists and $85 for journalists and can be purchased online via Eventbrite.

Francia Garcia Hernandez, Block Club Chicago

Garcia Hernandez is an award-winning bilingual journalist for Block Club Chicago, where she covers the city’s primarily Latino neighborhoods on the city’s Southwest Side. She is also Block Chicago’s lead immigration reporter. In 2025, she was one of the main reporters covering Operation Midway Blitz, earning multiple awards for her coverage of the federal government’s immigration crackdown in Chicago.

Christy Gutowski, Chicago Tribune

Gutowski is a journalist on the investigative team at the Chicago Tribune. During her 30-year career, Gutowski’s stories of the overlooked and unprotected have made a difference in people’s lives. Her work has put the spotlight on people abused by priests, children neglected by the state’s welfare system and families suffering from generational trauma caused by violence. Gutowski shared in the Tribune staff’s 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting on Operation Midway Blitz. In 2020, she wrote more than 100 obituaries of people, especially medical professionals, who died from COVID because she believes everybody’s life has meaning.

Mary Wisniewski, freelance

Wisniewski has been a Chicago journalist for 38 years, starting at the City News Bureau. She has been a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune, as well as Midwest general news reporter for Reuters. Wisniewski’s biography of Nelson Algren, “Algren: A Life,” won the Society of Midland Authors prize for best biography and the Chicago Writers Association award for best non-fiction. She is a copy editor for the Chicago Tribune, as well as a freelance writer for the Tribune, Newcity, Chicago Magazine and other publications. She teaches non-fiction writing and is working on her second book.

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 its impact.

Named for Dorothy Storck, the late syndicated newspaper columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner, the monetary prize honors the best work produced by a woman, trans, femme or nonbinary (WTFNB) journalist in the Chicagoland area. This focus highlights Storck as a trailblazer, serving as a U.S. Air Force squadron commander and holding the rank of major before becoming a journalist. 

The annual award was established in 2017 by Storck’s family and her partner, former University of Illinois at Chicago political science professor Dick Simpson. 

CJA is grateful to its event sponsors, the Field Foundation and Press Forward Chicago.

Previous grand prize winners include:

• Brandis Friedman, WTTW (2025)
• Nell Salzman, Chicago Tribune (2024)
• 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)
• Rex Huppke, Chicago Tribune (2017)

Past second place award winners include:

• Alma Campos, South Side Weekly, and Shia Kapos, Politico (2025)
• Stacy St. Clair, Chicago Tribune, and Michele Weldon, AARP and West Suburban Living magazine (2024)
• Maya Dukmasova, Injustice Watch, and Sylvia Snowden, CAN TV (2023)
• Rummana Hussain and Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times (2022)
• John W. Fountain and Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times (2021)
• Burt Constable, The Daily Herald, and Laura Washington, ABC 7 Chicago/Chicago Sun-Times (2020)
• Barry Rozner, The Daily Herald, and Natalie Moore, WBEZ Radio (2019)
• Mick Dumke, ProPublica Illinois, and Deborah Douglas, The Chicago Reporter (2018)
• Natasha Korecki, Politico, and Scott Jacobs, The Week Behind (2017)