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.
-
Cease-fire negotiations have successfully stemmed violence in the city of Fallujah, where Marines have encircled the town. Attacks have continued elsewhere in Iraq, and several foreign citizens remain hostages. Hear NPR's Philip Reeves and NPR's Cheryl Corley.
-
The fate of three Japanese civilians held hostage in Iraq hangs in the balance. Government officials say they will not comply with a demand to withdraw a small contingent of Japanese troops engaged in reconstruction work in Iraq. The Arabic news network Al-Jazeera is reporting the hostages may be released soon. Hear NPR's Cheryl Corley and NPR's Rob Gifford.
-
Fierce street fighting breaks out in a Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad. And battles continue around Fallujah, even as U.S. occupation authorities dispatch an Iraqi delegation to negotiate a cease-fire there. There are reports that insurgents may agree to a truce beginning Sunday. Hear NPR's Cheryl Corley and Anthony Shadid of The Washington Post.
-
Twenty years ago the nation faced a new drug scourge: crack cocaine. With it came thousands of children born to addicted mothers and labeled "crack babies." When the drug first hit the streets of New York in the 1980s, the city had 17,000 children in foster care. A decade later, that number had soared to 50,000. Many of the children had been exposed to crack cocaine before birth. NPR's Cheryl Corley speaks with several people who were affected in some way by the crack epidemic.
-
As pilgrims gather in Karbala for the Shiite Muslim holiday al-Arbaeen, militants loyal to firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr take control of the streets. U.S.-led forces have yet to reassert control. Hear NPR's Cheryl Corley and NPR's Anne Garrels.
-
The White House declassifies most of a presidential intelligence briefing from August, 2001 that said Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were threatening strikes inside the United States. The document was the source of many questions as National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice testified before the Sept. 11 commission Thursday. Hear NPR's Cheryl Corley and NPR's Pam Fessler.
-
Say "street music" in Chicago, and much of the year, that means the screech of the city's elevated train as it makes its way around downtown. But when the weather gets warm, musicians set up under the El train tracks to make the cacophony more melodic. NPR's Cheryl Corley joins Caravan under the tracks for the final installment of All Things Considered's summer series on street musicians.
-
Russell Lewis in San Diego, NPR's Cheryl Corley in Chicago and Toni Randolph in Boston report on how Americans view the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq in light of the ongoing guerilla war there.
-
NPR's Cheryl Corley reports that decades after a federal judge ordered it, new houses are about to built for black residents who lost their homes in an ethnic enclave next to Detroit. The few African-Americans in Hamtramck, Mich., in the 1960s successfully claimed in court that urban renewal targeted their homes for destruction and withheld relocation help.
-
The head of a Muslim charity accused of funneling money to Osama bin Laden's terror network pleads guilty to a racketeering charge. Federal prosecutors drop other charges against the head of the Benevolence International Foundation in return for his cooperation. NPR's Cheryl Corley reports.