Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigative reporter Megan Twohey will be featured at the Chicago Headline Club Foundation’s Inaugural Fall Fundraiser to benefit the organization’s Les Brownlee Memorial Scholarships and journalism internship grants.
Twohey, co-author with Jodi Kantor of “SHE SAID: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement,” will be on hand for a VIP reception, a screening of the film based on their book and a conversation afterwards. The event will be held Thursday, Sept. 28, at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, and the film is scheduled to start at 6:45 p.m.
The fall fundraiser is the Chicago Headline Club Foundation’s first large-scale event devoted exclusively to raising funds for their annual $5,000 scholarship to benefit a Chicago area or Illinois journalism student, as well as two annual $5,000 grants to Chicago area non-profit journalism organizations to help them hire and fund internships.
— Tickets are $20 for general admission, followed by a Q&A moderated by award-winning Chicago reporter Carol Marin. Pre-show VIP tickets are $100 and include a cocktail and reception with Twohey. Buy tickets here.
— Donors also can “Sponsor a Student” for admission to the event for a journalism student or a group of student journalists invited to attend. Contact CHC Foundation President Molly McDonough (molly@mcdonough-media.com) to designate donations to student sponsorship.
The benefit is to help underwrite the costs of longstanding programs run by the Chicago Headline Club and the CHC Foundation to advance and train young journalists, promote non-profit and investigative journalism and support talent and diversity in the Chicago journalism community.
Twohey, an Evanston native who was previously a reporter for the Chicago Tribune and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, shared the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with fellow journalists and is a best-selling author whose work at The New York Times has focused extensively on the treatment of women and children. In 2017, Twohey and Kantor broke the story of Hollywood Producer Harvey Weinstein’s long pattern of sexual harassment and abuse, which helped ignite the #MeToo movement started by the American activist Tarana Burke.
“She Said” takes readers behind the scenes of the Weinstein investigation and into the inspiring stories of women who bravely spoke up—to help themselves and other women in the future. The book was called “an instant classic of investigative journalism” by The Washington Post and was adapted into a film by Plan B Entertainment.
“The book is packed with reluctant sources, emotional interviews, clandestine meetings, impatient editors, secret documents, late-night door knocks, toady lawyers and showdowns with Weinstein himself,” wrote the Post’s Carlos Lozada in his book review. “The cumulative effect is almost cinematic, a sort of “All the President’s Men” for the Me Too era, except the men are women, and they don’t protect the boss, they take him down.”
Along with Ruby Shamir, Twohey and Kantor wrote another edition, “Chasing the Truth,” geared specifically for young readers who aspire to investigative journalism.
The Music Box Theatre, opened in 1929, is the most unique and historic operating cinema in the city and currently has the largest cinema space operated full-time in Chicago. The main auditorium seats 720, and the secondary screening room seats 70. For the last three decades, the Music Box Theatre has been the premiere venue in Chicago for the latest in foreign and independent films. Background on the Music Box Theatre may be found here.