Cheryl Corley
Cheryl Corley is a Chicago-based NPR correspondent who works for the National Desk. She primarily covers criminal justice issues as well as breaking news in the Midwest and across the country.
In her role as a criminal justice correspondent, Corley works as part of a collaborative team and has a particular interest on issues and reform efforts that affect women, girls, and juveniles. She's reported on programs that help incarcerated mothers raise babies in prison, on pre-apprenticeships in prison designed to help cut recidivism of women, on the efforts by Illinois officials to rethink the state's juvenile justice system and on the push to revamp the use of solitary confinement in North Dakota prisons.
For more than two decades with NPR, Corley has covered some of the country's most important news stories. She's reported on the political turmoil in Virginia over the governor's office and a blackface photo, the infamous Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida, on mass shootings in Orlando, Florida; Charleston, South Carolina; Chicago; and other locations. She's also reported on the election of Chicago's first black female and lesbian mayor, on the campaign and re-election of President Barack Obama, on the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and oil spills along the Gulf Coast, as well as numerous other disasters, and on the funeral of the "queen of soul," Aretha Franklin.
Corley also has served as a fill-in host for NPR shows, including Weekend All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and defunct shows Tell Me More and News and Notes.
Prior to joining NPR, Corley was the news director at Chicago's public radio station, WBEZ, where she supervised an award-winning team of reporters. She also worked as the City Hall reporter covering the administration of the city's first black mayor, Harold Washington, and others that followed. She also has been a frequent panelist on television news-affairs programs in Chicago.
Corley has received awards for her work from a number of organizations including the National Association of Black Journalists, the Associated Press, the Public Radio News Directors Association, and the Society of Professional Journalists. She earned the Community Media Workshop's Studs Terkel Award for excellence in reporting on Chicago's diverse communities and a Herman Kogan Award for reporting on immigration issues.
A Chicago native, Corley graduated cum laude from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, and is a former Bradley University trustee. While in Peoria, Corley worked as a reporter and news director for public radio station WCBU and as a television director for the NBC affiliate, WEEK-TV. She is a past President of the Association for Women Journalists in Chicago (AWJ-Chicago).
She is also the co-creator of the Cindy Bandle Young Critics Program. The critics/journalism training program for female high school students was originally collaboration between AWJ-Chicago and the Goodman Theatre. Corley has also served as a board member and president of Community Television Network, an organization that trains Chicago youth in video and multimedia production.
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Calls for racial justice and an end to police brutality still fill social media platforms a year after George Floyd's murder. But Black Lives Matter says posts targeting it are full of disinformation. -
In some states, ammunition and gun sales have soared as the coronavirus pandemic grows. Lines have formed at gun stores as many gun buyers say they want to be ready with protection if there's panic. -
In Mississippi, it's a felony offense for anyone behind bars to possess a cellphone. There's a push there to get the state's supreme court to reconsider one man's 12-year prison sentence.
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An art installation in Chicago honors victims of gun violence, and its organizers hope to make it a national monument. They want to bring widespread attention to what they consider another epidemic. -
A group of registered child sex offenders in Aurora, Ill., may have to move out of their ministry-run home or face felony charges. -
Mayor Lori Lightfoot recently fired the city's police superintendent. Now, residents will get to have a say about who should lead the country's second-largest police department.
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In most states, a person who commits a property crime can face a felony murder charge if it results in someone being killed, even unintentionally. Juvenile justice advocates say the law is unfair. -
Police say the trio ran one of the country's largest illegal manufacturing vaping businesses. Officials continue to investigate what's behind the deaths and illnesses linked to vaping. -
Mayors of some of the cities the president targets say they aren't worried about jeopardizing federal funding and will continue fighting the rhetoric and policies they believe will harm urban areas. -
Offering rewards to catch criminals may, in rare instances, motivate people to come forward with a tip. However, few people actually claim rewards and there's little evidence that they actually work.
