William C. Gaines

William C. Gaines is a Journalism professor Emeritus of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign where he served as Knight Foundation chair for Investigative/Enterprise Journalism until his retirement in 2007.

He was an investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune from 1973 until 2001 where he shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for a series of stories about illegal and dangerous practices of some Chicago hospitals and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for reporting on abuses by the Chicago City Council. He was a finalist in 1995 for another Pulitzer Prize for an investigation of financial dealings of The Nation of Islam.

He created and taught a course in investigative reporting at Columbia College, Chicago; and the University of North Dakota. He is the author of Investigative Reporting for Print and Broadcast, Nelson Hall Publishing Co.1992, and Investigative Journalism; Proven Strategies for Reporting the Story, 2007. He co-authored a biography of jazz composer Jelly Roll Morton in 2003 for Da Capo Press.

Professor Gaines graduated from Butler University with a degree in broadcasting. He produced a weekly news documentary radio program for Armed Forces Radio Network while serving the U.S. Army in Germany in 1958. He was a radio newscaster for WCTW, New Castle, Indiana; WINN Louisville, Kentucky; WWCA Gary, Indiana; WJOB, Hammond, Indiana; and television newscaster for WKZO-TV, Kalamazoo, Michigan, before joining the Tribune.

He was elected to the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame by the International Press Club of Chicago, June 2004. Named "Stand-up Guy" by Chicago Press Veterans' Association, October 3, 2003.