CONGRATULATIONS

To the three Sun-Times efforts that took first-place honors in the Chicago Journalists Association’s Sarah Brown Boyden Awards and Dorothy Storck Award for column-writing.

Ismael Perez is the first-ever Latino to win (and also to be a finalist for) the Dorothy Storck Award, for a selection of three columns. Rummana Hussain and Lynn Sweet also tied for second.

“The ability to spark conversation, open minds and touch hearts is the ultimate goal of an effective columnist, and it is something Ismael does magnificently through personal stories that speak to troublesome, but timely, topics such as racism, homophobia and low self-worth. His stories are poignant without self-pity, enlightening without judgment and bold without apology.” - Judges

Frank Main, with Casey Toner and Jared Rutecki of the Better Government Association, won first place in the Boyden Awards for politics coverage for The costly toll of dead-end drug arrests.

“The Sun-Times’ and Better Government Association’s investigation into arrests for minor drug crimes took one of the city’s open secrets — that such offenses were almost automatically dismissed when they get to the courts — and instead of chalking it up to a quirky disconnect between police and prosecutors, interrogated the implications for the people caught in the middle.

They found people’s lives ruined by police enforcing a law that prosecutors were choosing not to enforce, and taxpayers footing a bill in the millions in the process.” - Judges

Lynn Sweet, Manny Ramos, Elvia Malagón,

Sophie Sherry and Paul Saltzman won first place in the Boyden Awards for breaking news for coverage of the Highland Park Fourth of July parade mass shooting.

“The story did a great job of balancing up-to-minute breaking news reporting and writing with a look ahead at the victims, politics and the future recovery (and, sadly, the likelihood that other mass shootings will follow).” - Judges