Chicago, IL–(ENEWSPF)– The Chicago Headline Club – the largest local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists in the country – today announced the winners of its 2010 Lifetime Achievement Awards. Veteran Chicago journalists Roger Ebert, Richard C. Longworth and Elizabeth Brackett will be honored for their extraordinary work in Chicago journalism at the 34th annual Peter Lisagor Awards for Exemplary Journalism banquet on FRIDAY, MAY 6. This year’s awardees exemplify journalism at its best.
- ROGER EBERT has been the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1975, and his reviews are now syndicated in more than 200 newspapers in the U.S., Canada, England, Japan and Greece. Ebert is the co-host of television’s “Ebert & Roeper,” which appears in more than 200 markets and continues to rank as the top-rated weekly syndicated half-hour on television. For 23 years, he co-hosted “Siskel & Ebert” with the late Gene Siskel.
- RICHARD C. LONGWORTH is a veteran of the City News Bureau, UPI – both in Chicago and abroad – and the Chicago Tribune where he spent nearly 30 years as an economics reporter, business editor, chief European correspondent and senior writer. Twice a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Longworth has reported from 80 countries and covered such historic events such as the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, all European revolutions of 1989, plus wars in the Mideast, Somalia and Kosovo. Longworth has won the Overseas Press Club Award twice, and has captured every major national award for economic reporting and a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award for his camel trek through the Sahara. For the Tribune and in his two books, he specialized in globalization and its impact on Chicago and the Midwest. He is a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
- ELIZABETH BRACKETT currently serves as correspondent and substitute host for WTTW11’s flagship nightly public affairs program Chicago Tonight. During her tenure, she has covered presidential, mayoral and gubernatorial races, Chicago financial exchanges, the Chicago Bulls and genetic research, to name a few. Since 1984, she has also served as local correspondent for the PBS program The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. In that role she has covered national and international stories on an in-depth basis. Before joining WTTW, Brackett served as a general assignment reporter for WLS-TV, WGN-TV and Radio and WBBM-TV. Brackett has won two Midwest Emmy Awards, two Peter Lisagor Awards for Business Journalism and a National Peabody Award.
“This year’s awards and recipients carry on our tradition of honoring outstanding journalists,” said Susan S. Stevens, president of the Chicago Headline Club. “Chicago has so many great journalists that it is really difficult to single out just a few each year.”
In addition to the Lifetime Achievement Awards, the Chicago Headline Club will award its 2010 Watchdog Award for Excellence in Public Interest Reporting and will announce the winners of the Lisagor awards, which are awarded Chicago-area journalists for their exemplary work and truly superior contributions to journalism in a variety of categories. Winners were selected for such attributes as enterprise, accuracy, scope, style and impact.
The Chicago Headline Club will also announce the recipient of the $2,500 Les H. Brownlee Scholarship to a Chicago-area journalism student and two $2,500 scholarships for journalism students who will have unpaid summer internships in the Chicago area.
Chicago Tribune Editor Gerould Kern will give the keynote address.
The awards dinner will be held at the Hotel Allegro, 171 W. Randolph St. in Chicago, and begins at 5:30 p.m. Tickets to the dinner are $65 for members, $85 for non-members and $800 for a table of 10.
For more information and to purchase tickets to attend the dinner, please call Kathy Catrambone, Headline Club executive director, 312-553-0393, or visit www.headlineclub.org.
