CHICAGO — Block Club Chicago is a finalist for nine awards in the Chicago Journalists Association’s Sarah Brown Boyden Competition.
The annual awards “honor the best of the best journalism” in Chicago and its suburbs, including northwestern Indiana, according to its website. This year, the organizers received a record number of submissions, according to the group’s announcement.
Block Club is a finalist in the breaking news, public service and photography categories, among others.
The finalists:
- Breaking News, for its coverage of police killing 13-year-old Adam Toledo.
- Breaking News, for its coverage of police shooting a man in Englewood and the subsequent spread of misinformation.
- Business, for its coverage of music venues’ fight to stay open during the pandemic.
- Education, for its reporting of a West Side mother who fought to change the rules at her young son’s school after he was forced to remove his braids. A state senator was inspired by the story and wrote a bill to ban hair discrimination in Illinois schools. It is now law.
- News/Sports Photography, for photos featured in the “A Year of Loss” project, which highlighted local victims of COVID-19.
- Public Service, for its collaboration with the Better Government Association on a series of investigative reports showing questionable practices at Loretto Hospital.
- Technology, for its coverage of older people struggling to get vaccinated against COVID-19 due to technology disparities.
- Transportation, for its coverage of South Shore streets going weeks without being plowed after snowfall — and how that impacted residents.
- Transportation, for its look back at how the city shutting down parts of the Green Line forever changed some neighborhoods.
See all of the Sarah Brown Boyden Competition finalists here. The winners will be announced Friday.
Breaking News Editor Kelly Bauer has also been named Chicago Journalist of the Year by the organization and will be honored at Friday’s ceremony.
The Chicago Journalists Association is a nonprofit that was founded in 1939 to recognize and connect area journalists. Brown Boyden worked at the Chicago Evening American, Chicago Daily News and Chicago Sun.
Block Club has published more than 14,000 stories since its launch, covering everything from Chicago’s beloved Chance the Snapper to vaccine scandals at Loretto Hospital.
Listen to “It’s All Good: A Block Club Chicago Podcast” here: