Kudos to Fernando Diaz of The Chicago Reporter

The Chicago Reporter’s Fernando Diaz has been awarded the 2008 Emerging Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. He will be honored at the NAHJ’s 23rd annual Noche de Triunfos Journalism Awards Gala Sept. 12 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Among the reasons Diaz was selected were his “desire to converge to other media platforms, develop the magazine’s Internet coverage, adapt stories for Spanish-language television and uncover information that the entire community should know,” according to a letter by Iván Román, executive director of the association.

Diaz, 29, has worked at the Reporter – an investigative monthly magazine that identifies, analyzes and reports on the social, economic and political issues facing metropolitan Chicago - since October covering issues of immigration, criminal justice, and government and politics. In just 10 months he has produced projects:
• Documenting the burden families face in staying connected to relatives at faraway Illinois prisons
• The challenges threatening the state’s plan to integrate immigrants
• The success and failures suburban municipalities face in adapting to a growing immigrant population.

Along with his work at the Reporter, Diaz is currently a Fellow with the Institute for Justice and Journalism at the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communication, working on a story about immigrants in the military. This MF-funded program allowed 10 reporters covering immigration and their editors to attend intensive training and site visits to the U.S.-Mexico border, Los Angeles and New York City.

For more on Diaz and his prestigious award, go to http://www.chicagoreporter.com/events/index.php/item/Diaz_Named_%27Emerging_Journalist_of_the_Year%27.