Feder: DeRogatis, Waldron win Headline Club's Lifetime Achievement Awards

Jim DeRogatis, the longtime Chicago music critic, crusading reporter, author and broadcaster, and Clarence Waldron, former senior writer and senior editor of Jet Magazine, have been named recipients of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Chicago Headline Club, Robert Feder writes.

In lieu of the 2020 Peter Lisagor Awards ceremony, which has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they'll be recognized at a virtual event May 15. Other winners of awards for excellence in journalism from the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists also will be announced at that time.

DeRogatis and Waldron will be invited to deliver a more public acceptance at the organization's 100th anniversary celebration in 2021.

DeRogatis, former pop music critic at the Sun-Times, is the author of 11 books, including Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly, which culminated two decades of dogged reporting about the sexual misconduct of the Chicago R&B star.

With former Chicago Tribune rock critic Greg Kot, DeRogatis co-hosts "Sound Opinions" on Chicago Public Media WBEZ 91.5-FM and 125 public radio stations nationwide. He also is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Columbia College Chicago.

Waldron, dubbed "the dean of arts and entertainment journalists" by the National Association of Black Journalists, spent 29 years as senior writer and senior editor of Jet Magazine, the former show biz bible of Chicago-based Johnson Publishing Co.

Since 1998 Waldron has been an adjunct professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He also taught at Columbia College and Loyola University.

Get the full report, and more Chicago media news, at robertfeder.com.