CHICAGO — The award-winning Windy City Times AIDS @ 30 series, a 13-month look at the epidemic through more than 200 articles, is now available for free download on the paper's Website.
To receive the link to the 245-page download, signup to receive the email link here: www.windycitymediagroup.com/sign_up_to_rcv.php .
The series won the prestigious Peter Lisagor Award from the Chicago Headline Club, and was nominated for a national Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Award, in the same category with The New York Times and The Boston Globe.
2012 marked the 30th year of the first known cases of what would later be called AIDS. The series was initially slated to be nine months long, but the paper continued the series to meet the demand for more coverage on the impact of the epidemic.
The series featured new information on the impact of AIDS locally, nationally and internationally, as well as features on people lost to AIDS, activists, volunteers, scientists, doctors, nurses, service providers, and groups which sprang up to respond to the crisis.
Windy City Times was founded in 1985, just as AIDS was escalating in Chicago and across the world. The series pulled from the archives of the newspaper, in addition to other publications produced by Publisher Tracy Baim: Outlines, BLACKlines, En La Vida and Nightspots. Baim coordinated a team of more than two dozen reporters.
"Many young people today do not realize the impact the AIDS epidemic had on the GLBT community," said Baim. "We wanted to document that history, and give perspective to this disease, which has claimed millions of lives around the world. The AIDS epidemic is not over, even though new therapies have helped some people survive longer."
The series was supported by: Gilead Sciences, Inc.; The Local Reporting Initiative of The Chicago Community Trust; Newsweb Corporation; and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago.
The PDF is 245 pages and is a compilation of all of the pieces included in the 13-month Windy City Times series.
Windy City Media Group (WCMG) produces Windy City Times, Nightspots, OUT! Resource Guide, Identity online,WindyCityQueercast.com and QueerTVNetwork.com . WCMG is also the producer of these annual events: Windy City Gay Idol, Gays Got Talent, 30 Under 30 and the Windy City Times Theater Series. See www.windycitymediagroup.com .
