Chip reports on criminal justice from WBEZ’s bureau on Chicago’s West Side. His investigative and narrative reporting has earned dozens of local and national awards. He is a three-time winner of the Chicago Headline Club’s annual award for “best reporter” in broadcast radio.
Before Chip joined WBEZ in 2006, his base for three years was Bogotá, Colombia. He reported from conflict zones around that war-torn country and from several other Latin American nations. The reporting reached U.S. audiences through NPR, the BBC and daily newspapers including the Dallas Morning News and the Christian Science Monitor.
From 1995 to 2003, Chip focused on immigration and Latin America as editor of Connection to the Americas, winner of the 2003 Utne Independent Press Award for “general excellence” among newsletters nationwide.
Chip was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and raised in nearby Falcon Heights. He earned a B.A. in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In Chicago, he lives with his partner and their daughter on the Northwest Side, where they founded the Humboldt Park Gators, an all-girls baseball team.
Chip Mitchell
Stories by Chip Mitchell
Appeals court upholds $1.1 million for investigator who refused to change findings on CPD shootings
Lorenzo Davis was fired in 2015 from his job as a supervisor of Chicago’s Independent Police Review Authority, now known as COPA.
Nearly all of state’s attorney hopeful Eileen O’Neill Burke’s big funders are white men
The ex-judge’s top 25 individual donors include no African Americans and no women, a WBEZ analysis of her Illinois campaign filings finds.
O’Neill Burke widens fundraising lead in race to replace State’s Attorney Kim Foxx
Eileen O’Neill Burke, who faces Clayton Harris III in the Cook County Democratic primary, has received hundreds of thousands from conservatives.
The Democrats running to replace State’s Attorney Kim Foxx answer five key questions
WBEZ required a “yes” or “no” from Eileen O’Neill Burke and Clayton Harris III on topics ranging from gun possession to prosecutor unionization.
State’s attorney candidate Clayton Harris III pledges to ‘chart my own course’ despite being party pick
Harris insists he doesn’t have to choose — and neither do voters — between outgoing leader Kim Foxx’s progressive policies and a safer county.
Eileen O’Neill Burke says she’s running for state’s attorney because ‘our justice system is not working’
The former judge says her decadeslong track record makes her fit for the role. Her critics call it her Achilles’ heel.
Bill backed by Pritzker would require a lawyer for kids under 18 during interrogations
The legislation was prompted by WBEZ reporting that showed how a suburban Chicago detective extracted a teen’s false confession to a shooting.
The Cook County Jail population has shrunk dramatically, but costs have not. Why?
Sheriff Tom Dart cites pay hikes for corrections employees and the expense of managing detainees with addiction or health issues. We analyzed the numbers.
The Democratic Party’s pick to replace Kim Foxx is behind in fundraising
Clayton Harris III lags his primary rival, Eileen O’Neill Burke, whose donors include an ex-prosecutor tied to deceased police Cmdr. Jon Burge.
A Chicago agency recommends firing four cops tied to a corrupt former sergeant
The officers worked with ex-Sgt. Ronald Watts, who is tied to at least 230 exonerations.