About Kat

Kathy Chaney, an award-winning Chicago-based journalist who often writes about crime, criminal justice, the courts, missing persons cases and politics, is the Chicago Defender newspaper’s Web Editor.

She has made more than 75 appearances on HLN’s “Nancy Grace Show” and various CNN news shows reporting on the Nialah Franklin, Stacy Peterson and Jada Justice missing persons cases; on the Lane Bryant store homicides; Jennifer Hudson Family Tragedy and Roland Burris Senate appointment, among other stories. Her work has also appeared in the Hyde Park Herald, Lakefront Outlook and Chicago Tribune newspapers, and has also been featured on Reuters news wire and the French news wire service Agence France-Presse. Recently, she was a contributor on CBS 2 Chicago’s pilot public affairs show “unSpoken: The Things We Don’t Say.”

Kathy is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors.

She received a George Polk Award for local reporting, a Cook County Crime Stoppers Media Award and the Portrait of Achievers Award from the Probation Challenge organization.

Kathy also teaches multi-media journalism to junior high school students in the city and serves on the Advisory Board of WYCC/Channel 20.