The student news site of Coginchaug Regional High School

CRHS News

The student news site of Coginchaug Regional High School

CRHS News

The student news site of Coginchaug Regional High School

CRHS News

Profile: Award-Winning CT Journalist Lynne DeLucia

Profile%3A+Award-Winning+CT+Journalist+Lynne+DeLucia

Lynne DeLucia, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, has devoted her life to her craft and being a reporter.  

She always knew she was going to be a journalist, even at a young age. As a kid, she “loved to write and just felt that being a reporter would be a great way to pursue [her] passion.”

In high school, DeLucia wrote for the school newspaper and studied journalism in college. During the summer, she interned at her town newspaper, covering town meetings, park and recreation events – even an inch worm invasion. After college, she took a job working for “The New Haven Register,” where she stayed reporting for 10 years until she became an editor. DeLucia stayed at the Register as an editor for another 10 years until she took a job at “The Hartford Courant” in 1993.

At the Courant, she worked in various supervising positions. In 1998, the reporting team she was supervising covered a tragic shooting at the state lottery headquarters, in which four people were killed. Their work covering the shooting led to the whole team being nominated for, and eventually winning, a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for breaking news.

“Winning the Pulitzer was thrilling,” DeLucia said. “To receive the highest award in journalism – it’s almost too hard to describe.  I get chills now, thinking about it.” DeLucia says it was special because “the reporting team that [she] supervised was recognized for their hard work.”

DeLucia and Chedekel at the CT Womens Hall of Fame in November 2016. Photo submitted by Lynne DeLucia.

In the early 2000s, circulation and ad revenue declined, leading to journalism staff cuts, and reporting teams that covered topics such as health, the environment, education and neighborhoods were eliminated or reduced. DeLucia and long-time coworker Lisa Chedekel saw the need to fill the void in health coverage and began talking about launching their own website.

DeLucia left “The Hartford Courant” in 2010 to start the Connecticut Health I-Team, a non-profit website producing in-depth journalism on issues of health and safety in Connecticut, which she launched with Chedekel in December of that year. Additionally, C-HIT hosts an annual high school journalism camp for students in Connecticut to refine their investigative journalism skills.

Due to her long and celebrated career in journalism, DeLucia was inducted into the Journalism Hall of Fame in May 2014.

“I was deeply honored and humbled to be recognized by my peers and inducted in the CT SPJ Journalism Hall of Fame,” DeLucia said. It was “a wonderful tribute.”

“I find the most rewarding thing about the field of journalism to be working to make my reporters shine,” DeLucia reflected. “Reporters do the hard work: they dig to find the truth; they press reluctant people to speak to them; they find the story gems. I’m proud to publish their efforts. I find it gratifying to undercover truths and disclose information to readers that they would not find elsewhere.”

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