CHICAGO — Bronzeville reporter Jamie Nesbitt Golden, who has covered the South Side for Block Club Chicago since 2018, is the National Association of Black Journalists’ 2023 Journalist of Distinction.
The annual award recognizes one journalist each year who has “distinguished himself or herself with a body of work, a story, series, or photographs … that was extraordinary in depth, scope or significance to people in the African Diaspora,” according to the 48-year-old nonprofit professional alliance. Nesbitt Golden accepted the award at NABJ’s annual conference in Birmingham, Alabama last month.
Nesbitt Golden, a Low End native, has dedicated her life to telling South Side stories, from drawing much-needed attention to missing and murdered Black women and showing how CTA shutdowns devastated communities to telling the everyday stories of neighborhood joy. Before moving to the Bronzeville, South Loop and Douglas beat, she covered the Englewood, Chatham and Auburn Gresham neighborhoods for Block Club.
Senior Editor Dawn Rhodes said Nesbitt Golden brings all of herself to her work.
“She believes so much in the stories that she tells,” Rhodes said.
Nesbitt Golden said she’s honored to tell the stories of fellow South Siders who are fighting for schools, who are marching to address violence against women and who make people smile every day.
“It’s not glamorous work, but it’s important work,” she said. “I’m providing a service to the community and I’m also making sure that the neighborhood that raised me is being covered in an ethical, honest way.”
Earlier this year, Nesbitt Golden was also recognized by Public Narrative, a local media literacy and advocacy nonprofit, as the winner of their 2023 Studs Terkel Uplifting Voices Award. Past winners include Michelle Duster, Nikole Hannah-Jones and Jamie Kalven.
In 2021, Nesbitt Golden won a Chicago Journalists Association Sarah Brown Boyden award for best transportation coverage for her story on the lasting effects the shuttering of the Racine Green Line station had on Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood.
Block Club Chicago is a nonprofit, reader-funded newsroom dedicated to delivering reliable, nonpartisan and essential coverage of Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods.
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