Chicago Journalists Association

07/24/2026

Are you looking to up your game on using data to tell a story? The Chicago Journalists Association is offering a free virtual data journalism training opportunity for its members from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Aug. 12. led by Mike Reilley, professor and founder of the Journalist’s Toolbox.

The training will cover:

- Data scraping web pages with Google Sheets
- Scraping PDFs with Tabula and PDFtoExcel.com
- Building graphics with Flourish.studio
- Prompting Large Language Models (LLMs) to build infographics

Participants will receive handouts with all of the course materials. Be sure to set up a free Flourish account before the session if you don’t already have one and register for your ticket to the training ASAP!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/free-data-journalism-training-tickets-1993633032066

07/10/2026

🚨 Attention, Chicago! CJA is involved with several special upcoming opportunities for our community, so be sure to save the dates for these events! You don't want to miss them! 👇

07/07/2026

It's summertime, Chicago! That means it's time to come hang out with the Chicago Journalists Association and AAJA Chicago: Asian American Journalists Association-Chicago chapter at our upcoming joint networking event! We'll have light bites and casual vibes at The Northman Beer & Cider Garden on the Riverwalk, and we'd love to see you there!

CJA is excited to partner with our friends, AAJA Chicago, for this event on July 22! Spots are limited, so be sure to RSVP!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/aaja-chicago-x-cja-joint-networking-event-tickets-1992972384050?aff=oddtdtcreator

06/24/2026

Reminder to our CJA members to sign up for this upcoming event from our friends at the Field Foundation if you haven't already! Space is limited, but still open for this reflection on journalism's past, present, and future!

REGISTER NOW for "America @ 250: A Journalism Reckoning!"
Making of a Nation. Unmaking of a Narrative. Who Gets to Tell the Story?
📅 July 16, 2026 🕕 6–9pm 📍 Impact House, 200 W Madison St., 2nd Floor, Chicago

Space is limited. A waitlist will be instituted once capacity is reached.
https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/EDCzq639gB
We continue unveiling this powerful speaker line-up!

July 4, 2026 marks America's Semiquincentennial — the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Anniversaries like this invite both celebration and reflection: on the ideals our founders set forth, and on the ongoing work of living up to them. Among those ideals, a free press — recognized as the Fourth Estate — has always been central as an essential check on power, and a cornerstone of informed civic participation.

Across the political spectrum, many Americans share concern about the state of public discourse, trust in institutions, and the health of local and national journalism. Journalists across the country have faced mounting challenges — and the U.S. now ranks 64th among 180 nations on the World Press Freedom Index, a drop of seven places from the 2025 index.

Chicago's entire journalism ecosystem is invited for an evening of honest conversation reflecting on journalism's past, reckoning with journalism's present, and reimagining its future. The evening will feature nationally recognized keynote speakers as well as a panel conversation and an open mic session uplifting some of Chicago’s most influential journalism voices.

ALDEN LOURY
Alden Loury serves as the data projects editor for WBEZ and leads a team of data journalists collaborating with the newsrooms of both WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times for enterprise stories and longer-term projects. In that role, he leads projects, analyzes data, creates visualizations, and edits stories. Alden also writes a monthly column for the Chicago Sun-Times.

MONICA ENG
Monica Eng is an award-winning, veteran Chicago reporter. She has worked in Chicago journalism for more than four decades starting at the Chicago Sun-Times and moving to the Chicago Tribune and WBEZ. She has served as an Axios Chicago reporter since the summer of 2021.

06/18/2026

Earlier this month, members of the Chicago Journalists Association, National Association of Black Journalists and other local journalists attended a historic meeting with members of the Consulate General of China in Chicago.

Hosted by the Press Section of the Consulate General of China in Chicago, CJA members and other Chicago-area journalists gathered June 3 for a Journalism Exchange Dinner, which included stimulating conversation on the state of journalism in the United States and China and political relations between the two countries.

CJA will continue to foster relationships with international journalists and media professionals in Chicago and promote a welcoming global journalism community. We are grateful to the Consulate General of China for inviting Chicago journalists and CJA members to this meeting.

04/10/2026

We’re so proud and grateful to have gathered a full room yesterday, Local News Day, for an insightful and inspiring panel with Duaa Eldeib, Brandis Griffith Friedman, Ismael Perez, Nell Salzman, and our moderator, Deborah Douglas, on building impactful journalism careers.

Thanks to our panelists, moderator, those who attended, Northwestern University Medill School, and everyone else who helped make this event a success! If you missed it, and would like to attend similar events in the future, get involved with CJA today! Find out how at the link below.

https://chicagojournalists.net/qualifications-journalism-membership/

04/08/2026

Two reminders for tomorrow: First, we’re excited to see everyone at our panel on building impactful journalism careers tomorrow at the Northwestern University Medill School! Second, we are sharing another opportunity from The Institute for Independent Journalists and the Society of Environmental Journalists with a deadline of tomorrow.

The Institute for Independent Journalists and the Society of Environmental Journalists are hosting a live Pitch Fest at in Chicago. The event will be from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 18. The deadline to submit pitches for The IIJ and SEJ live Pitch Fest at is tomorrow at 11:59 P.M. ET.

Journalists attending the conference — as well as any Chicago-area freelancer — can submit their pitch for a chance to receive live feedback from a panel of seasoned editors at the event. Register at http://bit.ly/rsvppitchfest

If you aren’t attending SEJ, and you’re a freelancer, here’s a promo code for $5 off to attend Pitch Fest: CJA5.

We hope you apply for Pitch Fest AND make time for CJA’s event Thursday evening!

04/06/2026

Don't miss out on networking and the opportunity to learn from top local journalists! There's only a FEW days left until our FREE panel discussion and networking event featuring award-winning journalists from across Chicago this Thursday at Northwestern's Medill Chicago Newsroom!

The event, Building an Impactful & Award-Winning Journalism Career, will feature the four most recent grand prize winners of the Dorothy Storck Award—Duaa Eldeib, ProPublica (2023 winner), Brandis Friedman, WTTW (2025 winner), Ismael Pérez, Investigative Project on Race and Equity (2022 winner), and Nell Salzman, The New York Times, Local Investigations Fellow (2024 winner)—in a conversation moderated by Deborah Douglas, senior lecturer and founding director of the Medill Solutions Journalism Hub.

Sponsored by the Northwestern-Medill Local News Accelerator, the event will be held at the school’s Chicago newsroom at 303 E. Wacker Drive. If you still haven't grabbed your ticket, now is the time!

A Panel Conversation with Winners of the Dorothy Storck Award

04/03/2026

The Chicago Journalists Association wanted to thank Press Forward Chicago (The Chicago Community Trust), The Joyce Foundation, The Field Foundation of Illinois and The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation for their generosity in helping some of our board and other CJA members to attend the annual Online News Association Conference in Chicago this week.

We’re grateful to these J-funders not only for making attending ONA possible for so many, enabling CJA leaders and members to learn from talented local and out-of-state journalists, but also for their continued support of Chicago journalism and organizations like CJA year-round.

If you'd like to continue the networking from ONA, please join us at our panel next Thursday, where four previous Dorothy Storck winners will share their tips on building impactful, award-winning careers in journalism.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/building-an-impactful-award-winning-journalism-career-tickets-1984414840206

04/02/2026

We’re just A WEEK away from our next event, Building an Impactful and Award-Winning Journalism Career, in which four former Dorothy Storck Awards winners will share how they’ve built successful and impactful journalism careers.

Join us and Duaa Eldeib, ProPublica; Brandis Friedman, WTTW; Ismael Pérez, Investigative Project on Race and Equity; and Nell Salzman, The New York Times, Local Investigations Fellow for networking and career insights from some of Chicago’s most talented journalists.

This event, sponsored by the Northwestern-Medill Local News Accelerator and moderated by Deborah Douglas, senior lecturer and founding director of the Medill Solutions Journalism Hub at Northwestern University and 2021 Dorothy Storck winner, will be held at the school’s Chicago newsroom at 303 E. Wacker Drive. Pizza and pop will be provided and tickets are still available to purchase online!

You don’t want to miss this! We’d love to see you on Thursday!

A Panel Conversation with Winners of the Dorothy Storck Award