Chicago's NPR News Source

Natalie Moore

Reporter, Race, Class and Communities
Natalie Moore

Natalie Moore covers segregation and inequality.

Her enterprise reporting has tackled race, housing, economic development, food injustice and violence. Natalie’s work has been broadcast on the BBC, Marketplace and NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. Natalie is the author of The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation, winner of the 2016 Chicago Review of Books award for nonfiction and a Buzzfeed best nonfiction book of 2016. She is also co-author of The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of an American Gang and Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation. Natalie is the author of “The Billboard,” a play about abortion; 16th Street Theater produced the play.

Natalie writes a monthly column for the Chicago Sun-Times. Her work has been published in Essence, Ebony, the Chicago Reporter, Bitch, In These Times, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian. She is the 2017 recipient of Chicago Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award. In 2010, she received the Studs Terkel Community Media Award for reporting on Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods. In 2009, she was a fellow at Columbia College’s Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, which allowed her to take a reporting trip to Libya. Natalie has won several journalism awards, including a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism. Other honors are from the Radio Television Digital News Association (Edward R. Murrow), Public Radio News Directors Incorporated, National Association of Black Journalists, Illinois Associated Press and Chicago Headline Club. The Chicago Reader named her best journalist in 2017. In 2018, she received an honorary doctorate from Adler University. In These Times gave her the 2017 Voice of Progressive Journalism Award. Natalie frequently collaborates with Chicago artist Amanda Williams.

She is a 2021 USA Fellow. The Pulitzer Center named her a 2020 Richard C. Longworth Media Fellow for international reporting. In 2021, University of Chicago Center for Effective Government (CEG), based at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, welcomed her its first cohort of Senior Practitioner Fellows.

Prior to joining WBEZ staff in 2007, Natalie was a city hall reporter for the Detroit News. She has also been an education reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and a reporter for the Associated Press in Jerusalem.

Natalie has an M.S.J. in Newspaper Management from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a B.A. in Journalism from Howard University. She has taught at Columbia College and Medill. She is on the board of Seminary Co-op Bookstore and chair of the Harold Washington Literary Awards.

Latest from Natalie Moore

The creator of a new soap opera, featuring a core Black family, grew up on Chicago’s South Side. Michele Val Jean talks ‘Beyond the Gates.’
Hear from actors, set designers and wardrobe on the set of the storied soap — and revisit 1994, when Marlena was possessed by the devil.
Soaps once brought in 75% of a TV network’s revenue, says author Elana Levine. “Soaps were a legitimate kind of pop culture sensation.”
Soaps offered tender LGBTQ+ storylines before ‘Ellen’ and ‘Will and Grace.’ These days? Progress looks like a villain.
Soaps have featured Black actors for decades, but Black writers and actors say they’ve had to push their stories to the foreground.
Soap operas air five days a week. That frequency allows for — and demands — pioneering storytelling, especially when it comes to gender.
‘Stories Without End’ — a new six-episode podcast from WBEZ — explores the origins and real-life plot twists of the Chicago-born television genre.
Derided as low-brow entertainment for women, these shows have survived industry upheaval, changing taste and the digital streaming revolution.
Meet the Chicago woman who birthed the soap opera, first for radio in the 1930s and then TV in the 1950s.
WBEZ’s Making podcast delves into daytime soaps in an all-new season.
A new podcast explores how the death of 7-year-old Dantrell Davis led to Cabrini-Green being torn down.
Prolific author Percival Everett is out with a new novel, James.
‘Shadow’ is set to be released on April 12.