Chicago, IL – March 15, 2013 – Leah Hope, reporter at ABC 7, will receive the Diogenes Award
for Excellence in Media from the Better Business Bureau serving Chicago and
Northern Illinois (BBB) at the 86th Annual Dinner, being held at the
Chicago Downtown Marriott on Thursday, March 21, 2013. Hope will
be honored with the award for her years of news achievement.
“The BBB Diogenes
Award for Excellence in Media is presented to a news reporter who exemplifies
the goals and principles of the Better Business Bureau to support and foster an
ethical marketplace benefiting both consumers and businesses,” said Steve J. Bernas,
president & CEO of the Better Business Bureau serving Chicago
and Northern Illinois.
The BBB
Diogenes Award is named after the ancient Greek philosopher, Diogenes, who was
said to have traveled the streets of Athens
with a lantern looking for an honest man.
Hope is a
general assignment reporter for ABC 7 News. She is an award-winning reporter
who focuses on special investigations and other important stories affecting the
lives of Chicagoans. She joined ABC 7 in 1997 and served as the co-anchor of
ABC 7 News This Morning until 2001.
Hope's
work covering important issues in the African American community has been
honored on both national and local levels. In 2003, she won two awards from the
National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) for reports on a group of
"Lost Boys" attacked by a Chicago gang, as well as changes in the
cosmetics industry that reflect the changing face of America. The NABJ Chicago
Chapter awarded Hope the 2003 Russ Ewing Excellence in Journalism Award and
recognized her again with the 2004 Excellence in Enterprise Journalism Award
for a series of reports on affirmative action.
Hope
serves as a visiting faculty member at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies
in St. Petersburg, Fla.
and participated in the 2001 AIDS Ride from Minneapolis
to Chicago. She
is a member of the Investigative Reporters and Editors Association, the
National Association of Black Journalists, American Women in Radio and
Television, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Museum of Contemporary Art
and Instituto Cervantes of Chicago.
Hope
received her B.S. degree in Broadcast Journalism/Political Science in 1989 from
Syracuse University
in New York.
She is the great-granddaughter of John Hope, the first African-American
president of Morehouse College in Atlanta,
Ga.
Hope is married and resides in the Chicago area.
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As a private, non-profit
organization, the purpose of the Better Business Bureau is to promote an
ethical marketplace. BBBs help resolve buyer/seller complaints by means of
conciliation, mediation and arbitration. BBBs also review advertising claims,
online business practices and charitable organizations. BBBs develop and
issue reports on businesses and nonprofit organizations and encourage
people to check out a company or charity before making a purchase or donation.
