Chicago's Run-off Election
Esther Cepeda, Greg Hinz, John Kass, and Laura Washington
Thursday, Mar 19, 2015
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Speakers
Esther J. Cepeda
Esther J. Cepeda is an opinion journalist and expert on the issues of U.S. Hispanics/Latinos. She writes two columns a week for the Washington Post Writers Group and is also a marketing/communications expert, social media strategist and coach, and public speaker. Born and raised on the North Side of Chicago, Esther J. Cepeda started writing before her scribbles adequately conveyed her musings. She attended Lane Technical High School then went on to Southern Illinois University, earning a Bachelor's degree in journalism with minors in music and psychology. Before joining the Chicago Sun-Times in 2006, then becoming Chicago's first Latino metro columnist, Ms. Cepeda wrote about national and local politics and social issues for Illinois newspapers and magazines across the country. She wrote a weekly column for the Sun-Times until February 2012. Ms. Cepeda started writing two columns weekly for national newspaper syndication through the Washington Post Writers Group in October 2010. She lives in the Chicago area with her husband, two sons and rat terrier Sonic.
Greg Hinz
Greg Hinz is a Crain’s Chicago Business blogger and columnist on politics and government in Chicago, Illinois and the nation. A prize-winning reporter, Greg also writes frequently on such public policy issues as education, transportation and economic development. He joined Crain’s in 1996, after four years as political editor of Chicago magazine and nearly two decades as political editor and columnist with the Lerner Newspapers chain. His work has been honored by the Society of Business Editors and Writers and the Chicago Headline Club, among other professional organizations. Greg is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He took a brief leave of absence from journalism to serve as press secretary for the Carter/Mondale campaign in Illinois in 1980.
John Kass
John Kass, the son of a Greek immigrant grocer, was born June 23, 1956, on Chicago's South Side. He grew up there and in Oak Lawn. Growing up he held a number of jobs — merchant marine sailor, ditch digger, waiter — before becoming a film student at Columbia College in Chicago, where he worked at the student newspaper. He obtained an internship at the Daily Calumet in 1980, and ended up working there as a reporter until he left for the Chicago Tribune in 1983. He has won honors including the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi national award for general column writing, the Scripps Howard Foundation's National Journalism Award for commentary, the Chicago Headline Club's Lisagor Award for best daily newspaper columnist and the Chicago Tribune's Beck Award for writing. He lives in the western suburbs with his wife and twin sons.
Laura Washington
Laura Washington is a Chicago Sun-Times Columnist and ABC-7 Analyst. Formerly the Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor at DePaul University in Chicago, Washington is a multimedia journalist specializing in media-related issues, African-American affairs, local and national politics, race and racism, and social justice. She has been honored with more than two dozen local and national awards for her work, including two Chicago Emmys, the Peter Lisagor Award, the Studs Terkel Award for Community Journalism and the Ohio State Award for broadcast journalism. She has also received the Racial Justice Award from the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago, and is a founding inductee to the Medill School of Journalism Hall of Achievement and the 2002 Northwestern University Alumnae Award. In 1999 The Chicago Community Trust awarded her a Community Service Fellowship, for “exemplary service, commitment and leadership in individuals from the nonprofit sector.”
