JAWS Board Member Sylvia Snowden named recipient of Alicia “Lisa” Cobb Shepard Legacy Fund
Sylvia Snowden, JAWS Board Member, 2025 Recipient of the Alicia “Lisa” Cobb Shepard Legacy Fund.
By Adelina Blea, University of New Mexico
Journalism & Women Symposium (JAWS) is pleased to announce that current JAWS board member and reporter, anchor and producer at WGN AM 720 in Chicago, Sylvia Snowden, has been named as the 2025 recipient of the Alicia “Lisa” Cobb Shepard Legacy Fund.
The Alicia “Lisa” Cobb Shepard Legacy Fund was started in spring 2023, shortly after Alicia Shepard, who was a longtime JAWS member, died from complications of lung cancer. Shepard was an award-winning journalist, author, academic and advocate for ethical public journalism. The fund was established to provide opportunities to investigative journalists who are “working to right a wrong, doing groundbreaking work, chasing a good story that needs to be told, promoting diversity in the industry, and providing resources and mentoring so those who are forgotten can pursue their dreams,” as stated on the Alicia “Lisa” Cobb Shepard Legacy Fund page.
The 2024 inaugural recipient of the Alicia “Lisa” Cobb Shepard Legacy Fund and JAWS board member, Lottie Joiner, said, “the legacy has given me the courage to continue to tackle the ‘uncomfortable’ stories…stories that are often ignored or under-reported by the mainstream press.”
Sylvia Snowden, who joined the JAWS board in early 2024, was named the 2025 recipient. Snowden provides listeners of WGN 720 AM with the latest information about the most pressing local and national news stories of the day.
Prior to WGN, Snowden worked at CAN TV, Chicago’s public access television network, for more than 15 years. While at CAN TV, she served as host and producer of the network’s news affairs program, Political Forum. At Political Forum, she covered the ways Chicago’s West Side youth experienced the COVID-19 pandemic, the fight between state Democrats and Republicans over mask mandates, the 2020 Chicago riots, the legacy of Black women in Chicago politics and Chicago’s 2023 mayoral race.
As a native Chicagoan who hails from the city’s South Side, Snowden enjoys volunteering with many local community organizations that helped shape her as a young girl.
Snowden is a proud graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She was awarded the People’s Choice Award at the 28th Annual Community Media Awards presented by Public Narrative, the 2023 Dorothy Storck Award, and is the 2nd place winner of the Chicago Journalists Association’s top prize. Snowden was also the 2023 recipient of the legendary JAWS quilt, which represents strength, grace and sisterhood.
Alicia (Lisa) Shepard
(1953 - 2023)
The Alicia "Lisa" Cobb Shepard Legacy Foundation
This foundation honors the extraordinary life and career of Alicia “Lisa” Cobb Shepard who inspires us all to embrace every day with curiosity, courage, dignity, respect, passion, and a hefty dosage of “badassness.” To grab life by the horns and live it fully. To take smart risks, and not hesitate out of fear or convention. You can read a full tribute to Alicia written by JAWS member Michele Weldon here.
Memorial contributions in Lisa's honor may be made to:
Alicia "Lisa" Cobb Shepard Legacy Fund
The nonprofit recipients of this fund will have to excel in modeling one or more of the following Lisa-isms:
Working to right a wrong;
Chasing a good story which needs to be told even when it’s uncomfortable;
Providing resources and mentoring so those who are often forgotten can pursue their dreams; and
Supporting talented investigative journalists and media critics who are doing groundbreaking work.
You can read some of her work here.
About the Journalism & Women Symposium (JAWS)
Arising from a first meeting of women journalists in 1985, JAWS advances the professional empowerment and personal growth of women* in journalism and advocates for more inclusive coverage of the diverse experiences and cultures that comprise our society. We believe that by advancing women in journalism, we transform the world.
JAWS brings together working journalists, journalism educators and researchers from across the country to share resources, support, training and information about issues that affect women in our field. We meet in person and online in an atmosphere of mutual support and enthusiastic interest in one another’s differing experiences and journalistic dreams.
*“Women” here includes anyone who self-identifies as a woman, or as a non-binary, gender-nonconforming or agender person. Learn more at jaws.org.