👏 Mark Konkol Three-peats At Chicago Headline Club Awards

Chicago Patch columnist Mark Konkol won a Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism — a prestigious honor presented by the Chicago Headline Club — in recognition of his published commentary in 2021.

This is the third consecutive Lisagor Award for Konkol's Chicago Patch coverage, a three-peat if you will.

The 100-year-old Chicago Headline Club, the nation’s largest chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, presented the 45th annual awards at a reception Friday, May 6.

The lauded pieces, excerpted here, included two exclusives and a personal column:

Trolls Wrongly Accused Retired Chicago Firefighter Of Capitol Riot Murder

David Quintavalle didn't do it. The retired Chicago firefighter from Mount Greenwood — whom social media trolls called a "terrorist" and accused of fatally wielding a fire extinguisher that killed a cop as a mob of Trump-supporting insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — was grocery shopping and celebrating his wife's birthday in Chicago, Patch has learned.

Twitter exploded with unsubstantiated claims Tuesday that Quintavalle — who retired from the fire department in 2016 after 32 years — was the bearded "#extinguisherman" in a surveillance video wearing a "CFD" stocking cap wanted for questioning and "soon to be arrested" by the FBI regarding the fatal beating of U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.

» Read More

Army Vet Suffers Consequences Of State's Inept Unemployment System

Like thousands of out-of-work Illinoisans, Carlton Jones just wants his unemployment check before he goes broke. The North Sider made a claim in November after getting laid off as a law firm office manager.

He called the state unemployment hotline and submitted online questionnaires while waiting on hold. Jones even had his ex-wife reserve an extra spot in the virtual unemployment line using her cell phone number.

As of Wednesday morning, Jones told me he had been in the Illinois Department of Employment Security's "queue" without getting a call back on either line since Jan. 11.

» Read More

Three days after the piece about Carlton Jones was published on Patch, the Illinois Department of Employment Services resolved the claim.

If You Love Mom, Don't Let Her 'Wait And See' On Getting Vaccine

This is the story of a family that rebuffed public health guidance: mine.

My 93-year-old grandma should have been at the front of the line for COVID-19 vaccinations after the doctors and nurses.

But she didn't get the vaccine before her upstairs neighbor and my aunt and uncle, who live across the hall from her, all contracted coronavirus weeks ago.

My mom visited them a few days before Grandma's fever came, and the coughing fits started.

» Read More

😎 SIGN UP FOR MARK KONKOL'S CHICAGO DAILY NEWSLETTER, a must-read for Chicago-area residents. Click here to subscribe for a free daily email

Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, has been covering Chicago and offering his unique take on the city for more than two decades. He's written for Patch since 2017. Konkol wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots."

Named for Peter Lisagor, a Chicago Daily News columnist from 1959 until his death in 1976, the awards celebrate the "best journalism produced throughout the Chicagoland region, spanning all mediums, including print, radio, television and digital," according to the Chicago Headline Club.

The full list of Lisagor Award winners can be found on the club's website.

Read Mark Konkol's recent newsletters and columns here