Congratulations to our 2013 Lisagor winners!

The Chicago Headline Club presented the winners of its 2013 Lisagor Awards at its annual awards dinner tonight before more than 350 people at the Union League Club of Chicago. The awards recognize the best of Chicago journalism and are named for Peter Lisagor, the Chicago Daily News’ Washington bureau chief from 1959 to 1976.

Veteran journalists Bill Kurtis, Karen Meyer and Tracy Baim received Lifetime Achievement Awards. Mr. Kurtis is the former anchorman of CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2, where he first started in 1966. Deaf since birth, Ms. Meyer reports on disabilities for ABC7. Ms. Baim is publisher and executive editor at Windy City Media Group, which produces Windy City Times, Nightspots, and other gay media in Chicago.

Associated Press national writer Sharon Cohen received the third annual Anne Keegan Award for Reporting on the Little Guy. This award honors print and online journalists who tell extraordinary stories about ordinary people. Ms. Cohen wrote three compelling stories that captured the attention of the judges who reviewed 46 entries from 18 people. One was about an Army psychologist, Capt. Peter Linnerooth, who counseled soldiers in Iraq but then later took his own life. The second piece featured the triumph of the human spirit – a group of 12 Holocaust survivors living in a Chicago retirement community who have persevered to live long lives despite enduring hard times in concentration camps. Ms. Cohen’s third story profiled an Army chaplain, the Rev. Emil Kapaun, who was so beloved by the soldiers he helped on the battlefields of the Korean War that his determined comrades pressed for him to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor many years after he died at a prisoner of war camp. More than 60 years after Rev. Kapaun’s death, President Barack Obama presented the honor posthumously on April 11, 2014. Ms. Cohen’s winning stories really gave readers a sense of who these people were, what they did and the kind of impact they had on others.

And the 2013 Watchdog Award for Excellence in Public Interest Reporting went to Dan Mihalopoulos of the Chicago Sun-Times for “Clout in Session,” a series of stories on the United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) and its misuse of public funding. What made Mr. Mihalopoulos’ submission stand out among the 17 entries from a wide spectrum of media outlets was the relentless pressure of his coverage according to one of the judges. Mr. Mihalopoulos didn’t quit digging when UNO made cosmetic changes and spun a show of reform. The package of stories prompted the state to cut off funding and for the SEC to investigate, forcing UNO CEO Juan Rangel and some of his relatives out of the organization. The stories also didn’t shy away from connecting local powerbrokers, providing another layer of context. His work spelled out the state’s lack of accountability and transparency regarding charter school regulations, making UNO a ripe environment for abuse.

Andy Shaw, president and chief operating officer of the Better Government Association, served as master of ceremonies at the dinner.

The winners in more than 100 categories, including newspapers, magazines, television, radio and digital media, were:

ALL MEDIA: MULTIMEDIA COLLABORATION (AM1)

Chris Fusco and Monifa Thomas, Chicago Sun-Times and Tony Arnold of WBEZ, “DCFS’s Faces of Failure’’

ALL MEDIA: EDITORIAL CARTOON (AM2)

Jack Higgins, Chicago Sun-Times, “A sampling of editorial cartoons by Jack Higgins”

ALL MEDIA: BEST GRAPHICS (AM3)

Karen Freese, Crain’s Chicago Business

ALL MEDIA: BEST ILLUSTRATION (AM4)

Max Rust, Chicago Sun-Times, “Three news/editorial illustrations”

DAILY NEWSPAPER: BEST DEADLINE REPORTING (D1)