Two projects featured on Columbia College’s “ChicagoTalks” digital news website have been nominated for 2022 Peter Lisagor Awards.

“The Latinx World” is finalist for Best Reporting on Race and Diversity (small print/web) and “Everybody Goes Home: A Documentary” was nominated for Best Community Reporting (video).

The Lisagor Awards are presented by the Chicago chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and annually celebrate the best journalism produced in Illinois and northwest Indiana, spanning mediums including print, radio, television and digital.

ChicagoTalks, a digital news website, was founded in the fall of 2006 by Columbia College Chicago professors Barbara Iverson and Suzanne McBride.

Olivia Covey, ChicagoTalks editor, said that the nomination is a “huge honor” for the non-profit local news site, which serves as a working lab for journalism students at the college.

“I think it really shows that you don’t need a ton of money or personnel to produce good journalism,” Covey said.

The website is edited by a student and overseen by a faculty advisor. The advisor for the award-winning work was Curtis Lawrence, an associate professor in the Communication Department.

Running on a freelancer and contributor basis, the news site has become a working lab for journalism students.

“The Latinx World,” a collection of Q&A interviews surrounding the term “Latinx,” was done in “People, Power, and Narrative: Latino Voices,” a course taught by associate professor Elio Leturia.

Leturia said “The Latinx World” reporting was inspired by an ongoing debate about Latinos using the “American-imposed” term Latinx.

“We understand that it can be an inclusive term,” Leturia said. “But not all Latinos like to be called Latinx…and that topic was highlighted.”

Students were assigned to interview anybody who identified as someone with Latino and Hispanic background. Afterwards, the class developed a questionnaire.

Leturia said that it is a very useful topic for discussion in order to develop critical thinking, learn about self-identification and understand the Latino community.

“It cannot be monolithic…there are so many backgrounds,” Leturia said. “So we are not assuming that we have to use the word Latinx across the board, but it is something that is very personal, and people can choose to be identified one way or another.”

“Everybody Goes Home: A Documentary” by Nell Ambrose was produced in Journalism Short Doc, a course required for photojournalism majors. Martha Irvine, an Associated Press national writer and visual journalist, teaches the class. Irvine separately was nominated for her own video journalism.

The seven-minute short documentary highlights the stories of the firefighters who serve Hyde’s Park’s firehouse Engine Company 60 and how much the job and the firehouse mean to them.

“What I specifically enjoyed about ‘Everybody Goes Home’ is that it told the real stories of the people in the firehouse,” Covey said. “It wasn’t just a documentary about them going out to fight a fire, it was how they cope and live while doing the job.”

Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin, a professor in the communications department, said ChicagoTalks has been a wonderful platform for student work created in classrooms to get published.

“For our department, it’s really nice to see student work be recognized because it shows a level of excellence and importance that we hope we’re helping support,” Bloyd-Peshkin said.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony on, Friday, May 12 at Union League of Chicago.