The annual Chicago Headline Club Peter Lisagor Awards took place Friday night and Forest Park Review won first prize in the category of best in-depth news coverage for a non-daily community newspaper. The award was given for a series written in 2013 by Editor Jean Lotus about a patient death at Riveredge psychiatric hospital in Forest Park and the emergency and regulatory responses to the event.
A wide range of Chicago journalists from print, television, radio and online news sources were honored. Master of Ceremonies Andy Shaw, of the Better Government Association, said the contest received the highest number of entries – more than 800 – this year.
Honored with lifetime achievements were Tracy Bain, co-founder of windy City Times and Outlines, television presenter Bill Kurtis and ABC 7 correspondent Karen Meyer.
The Chicago Headline Club, the largest Society of Professional Journalists chapter in the country, established the Peter Lisagor Awards in 1977 to inspire Chicago-area journalists to follow Lisagor’s outstanding example and to recognize truly superior contributions to journalism.