Known for his commitment to questioning both sides of any political issue and maintaining an unbiased position, Peter Lisagor’s journalism career formed a style of no-nonsense reporting through his persistence and unwavering commitment to obtaining the truth.
For nearly two decades, from 1959 to 1976, Lisagor worked as the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Daily News. In this role, Lisagor was responsible for covering the ins and outs of Washington, D.C., to offer Chicagoans sought-after information from across the country.
During his time as Washington bureau chief, the Vietnam War was occurring, and the White House was home to five presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
To carry on Lisagor’s legacy and his commitment to reporting and analyzing the political world, the Chicago Headline Club established a yearly awards contest shortly after Lisagor’s death.
David Jackson, senior reporter at Injustice Watch, is one of many journalists who have received Peter Lisagor Awards. In May, Jackson received two awards for his reporting series “Exploited Elders,” which investigated the financial exploitation and lack of protection that elderly individuals have experienced.
While recognition for one’s work can be gratifying, it does not symbolize why journalists do the work they do. Jackson explained that the Peter Lisagor Awards offer generations of journalists the opportunity to connect under the name of someone whose legacy has made a significant mark on the ways Chicago journalists strive to report.
“I think that connecting new generations of journalists to that legacy of work is really important because I do think that Peter Lisagor, beyond everything, was important to our democracy,” Jackson said. “He was important to kind of a fundamental precept of U.S. democracy, which is that the fourth estate serves a civic mission of giving people the facts so they can make up their own minds about the important events of their day.”
At times, we as journalists have sources that may be hesitant to share information. However, your approach is exceedingly important — while you still need to ask the tough questions, doing so out of curiosity rather than interrogation will likely take you many steps closer to the truth.
Peter Lisagor succeeded in his work of covering monumental moments of American history through his objectivity and ability to provide consumers with accurate analyses of what was happening in the nation’s capital. Most importantly, Lisagor was known for reporting straight down the middle, sticking to the facts, being fair and holding people accountable.
Jackson, who also started his career in Chicago and later reported in Washington, D.C., said he felt that this experience offered him a similar insight to how Lisagor found his way toward reporting without a particular ideology in mind.
“I think I really saw in Peter Lisagor’s career how he ended up feeling that he may have started on the one side of the aisle or another side of the aisle in terms of America’s partisan politics, but he felt that his role as a journalist was to, sort of drive straight down the middle, and I found my own way to a very similar kind of position,” Jackson said.
Although Lisagor is best known for his position as Washington bureau chief, his career did not simply remain in the print sector. He became a familiar face to the public nationwide, frequently appearing on broadcasts like “Agronsky and Company,” “Washington Week in Review,” “Meet the Press,” and “Face the Nation.”
Stephen Rynkiewicz, who attended the first-ever Peter Lisagor Awards ceremony in 1977, was just about to enter into his journalism career when Lisagor passed away in 1976. Remembering Lisagor’s Chicago Daily News reports, particularly one in which Lisagor traveled with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, writing, “Traveling with Khrushchev is like holding a stick of dynamite with a sputtering fuse,” Rynkiewicz picked up on Lisagor’s “lively” writing.
“This kind of breezy writing helped establish Chicago’s mid-century reputation for muscular, no-nonsense journalism,” Rynkiewicz said.
In the 1990s, Rynkiewicz served as a chairman of the Peter Lisagor Awards and stumbled upon wire-service photos of Lisagor and Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as “Face the Nation” clips.
In these clips, “Lisagor would respectfully but persistently press for direct answers,” Rynkiewicz said. “Lisagor’s reporting has faded from memory, but the awards do justice to his drive to look for the revealing moment and tell it without pandering to his audience.”
Lisagor’s commitment to obtaining the truth and never turning a blind eye to misstatements is one that I plan to emulate in my own career. As journalists, we are committed to giving our audiences what they need to form educated opinions. By following Lisagor’s balancing act of directness and fairness, we too can gain the trust of our audiences, and our sources.
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