Founding Board

The Investigative Project on Race and Equity was created by a group of seasoned journalists and civic leaders who came together to preserve the distinctive brand of investigative journalism pioneered at The Chicago Reporter.

Kevin B. Blackistone
Blackistone is a longtime national sports columnist now at The Washington Post, a panelist on ESPN’s “Around the Horn,” a contributor to National Public Radio and coauthor of “A Gift for Ron,” a memoir by former NFL star Everson Walls. Blackistone is also a professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

Rui Kaneya
Kaneya is a senior editor at ProPublica, where he helps oversee projects for the Local Reporting Network. He previously served as a senior reporter at the Center for Public Integrity. Before joining Public Integrity, he was an investigative reporter for Honolulu Civil Beat, a correspondent for the Columbia Journalism Review and investigations editor at The Chicago Reporter.

Laura S. Washington
Washington is a Chicago Tribune contributing columnist and political analyst for ABC 7-Chicago. Washington brings more than two decades of experience as a multimedia journalist and nonprofit professional. From 2003 to 2009 she served as the Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor at DePaul University and is a former editor and publisher of The Chicago Reporter. 

Susy Schultz, Chair
Schultz is currently editing special sections for the Chicago Sun-Times and was contributing editor at The Chicago Reporter. She is a journalism and nonprofit executive who recently reshaped the Evanston Roundtable newsroom, a digital six-day-a-week newsletter. Her more than 25 years of experience spans newsrooms, classrooms, nonprofits and for-profits. An educator, editor, digital journalist, writer and strategist, her past titles include executive, managing, investigations and digital editor, columnist and editorial writer. She has also worked in government, academia, museums and the foundation world.

Kevin B. Blackistone, Vice Chair and Governing Board Member

Tom Brune
Brune is the Washington Bureau Chief at Newsday. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Brune has worked as a reporter, investigative and data journalist, and editor at the Seattle Times, Chicago Sun-Times and The Chicago Reporter. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and The Christian Science Monitor. 

Angela Caputo
Caputo is an award-winning investigative reporter who specializes in using documents, databases, mapping and other analytical tools to expose abuses of power and lax government oversight. She got her start in journalism as an intern for The Chicago Reporter and went on to produce investigative work as a staff journalist for American Public Media, the Chicago Tribune and Daily Southtown. She currently serves as the Project Director of the Investigative Project and teaches journalism at Loyola Marymount University.

Thom Clark
Clark is a co-founder of the Community Media Workshop. During his 35 years as an editor, photojournalist and social enterprise entrepreneur in Chicago’s nonprofit sector, Clark has developed affordable housing; co-founded and directed the Chicago Rehab Network; and served as editor of the award-winning monthly, The Neighborhood Works. 

Kathleen Humphries
A former reporter at The Chicago Reporter, Humphries is an award-winning writer/creative director in Chicago’s Black advertising industry. Now a creative consultant, she provides creative and production services to local and national clients and agencies, targeting multicultural consumers. She also wrote and co-produced two award-winning documentaries, “The Will to Survive: The Story of the Gullah/ Geechee Nation” and “The Invisible Men of Honor - The Legend of The Buffalo Soldiers.”

Rui Kaneya, Governing Board Member

Alden K. Loury
Loury is Data Projects Editor at WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, where he previously served as senior editor of the Race, Class and Communities desk. Loury also served as the director of research and evaluation for the Metropolitan Planning Council; was an investigator and policy analyst for the Better Government Association; and Editor and Publisher of The Chicago Reporter. 

Josh McGhee
McGhee is a staff reporter at MindSite News, where he covers the intersection of criminal justice and mental health with an emphasis on public records and data reporting. He previously reported for Injustice Watch. He's spent the last 10 years covering Chicago on various beats at local outlets including The Chicago Reporter, WVON and DNAInfo Chicago. He uses public records and data to cover courts, policing and corrections.

Sharon McGowan
McGowan is the former Collaborations Editor at the Institute for Nonprofit News. McGowan was the founding editor of Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, a nonprofit news organization that covers communities of color. She was inducted into the Milwaukee Press Club Hall of Fame in 2019. She started her career at The Chicago Reporter, and was the assistant news director/managing editor/assignment editor at WBBM-AM and WBBM-TV, both in Chicago. She taught journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and Marquette University for more than two decades.

John Schrag
John Schrag is co-founder of Oregon News Exploration, a new non-profit supporting news outlets throughout the state with a focus on rural residents and communities of color. He started in journalism at The Chicago Reporter as a reporter and managing editor. He was previously a reporter and editor for Willamette Week and was lead editor on a series which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. Prior to founding ONE, he was an executive editor of the Pamplin Media Group, which includes the Portland Tribune and two dozen community papers throughout Oregon.

Christine Wachter
Wachter is the associate director of marketing and strategic communications at North Shore Country Day in Winnetka, Ill. Previously, she spent 15 years at The Chicago Reporter and its sister publication Catalyst Chicago, serving as presentation editor for both publications and operations and marketing manager for the Reporter. She led magazine and website redesigns, created a photojournalism fellowship and helped digitize more than 40 years of archives. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Medill School of Journalism.

Laura S. Washington, Governing Board Member

James Ylisela Jr.
Ylisela is co-founder and senior partner of Ragan Consulting Group, which provides strategic communication research and planning, brand journalism, and training in writing, editing, multimedia and social media, for corporations, government agencies and nonprofits. He is an award-winning investigative journalist with 30 years of experience in newspapers, magazines and television, including the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago magazine, Crain’s Chicago Business and The Chicago Reporter.

Committee Volunteers

Jaquie Algee
Ashir Badami
Christina Córdova-Herrera
Deborah Douglas
Stephan Garnett
Matt Kiefer
Jim McGowan
Asraa Mustufa
Rita Oceguera
Arsenio Oloroso
Andy Shaw
Nikki Stein
Laura Wallace