The Chicago Headline Club announced on Friday that two ProPublica projects are among the three finalists for the Watchdog Award for Excellence in Public Interest Reporting. The award honors Chicago-area news reporting that calls attention to situations where the public is being harmed or poorly served. The “COVID-19 Inequities in Chicago” series by ProPublica staff turned an investigative lens on the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable populations. The cornerstone of the series is a story on the disproportionate toll the pandemic took on Black Chicagoans, illuminating what the emerging ...