Urban Milwaukee Wins Press Club Awards
Fifth-straight year the publication is honored by state-wide contest.
Urban Milwaukee Expansion
Urban Milwaukee won two awards in the state-wide journalism awards for 2016 presented by the Milwaukee Press Club on Friday. The online daily’s theater and opera critic Dominique Paul Noth won the gold award for Best Critical Review and Michael Horne won the silver award for Best Blog for his regular column, Bar Exam.
In addition, Urban Milwaukee editor Bruce Murphy won the bronze award for Best Editorial, for a column published in the Madison weekly Isthmus, which was a condensed version of a Murphy’s Law column for Urban Milwaukee.
“We’re very pleased to win these awards,” said Urban Milwaukee President Jeramey Jannene. “This now makes the fifth year straight that Urban Milwaukee has won Press Club awards, going back to 2012, which shows the quality of our work is getting regular recognition.”
The event was held at the InterContinental Hotel in downtown Milwaukee. David Fahrenthold, reporter for The Washington Post, was given the club’s 2017 Sacred Cat award, which has been given annually since 1973, to recognize excellence in journalism nationally. The 2017 Headliners awards, given to local leaders who make a difference, was given to Howard Fuller, civil rights activist, and education reform advocate, and Carmen Pitre, president and chief executive officer of Sojourner Family Peace Center.
Fahrenthold won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Donald Trump’s campaign and his charitable foundation, and gave an interesting, sometimes amusing speech about how he covered Trump. He recalled that when he questioned Trump about his charitable donations, Trump “called me a nasty guy, that I should be ashamed of myself.”
Fahrenthold described his use of Twitter to help research his stories and also provide transparency: he would tweet various charitable groups to ask if Trump had donated to them, and also used Twitter to ask his followers to help him locate a painting of Trump purchased by his foundation. Trump’s presidency, he noted, has made people more appreciative of journalism.
Founded in 1885, the Milwaukee Press Club is the oldest, continuously operating press club in North America.
Kudos, to your staff for being thoughtful and open minded.
Well-deserved! Both Dominique Paul Noth and Michael Horne are excellent writers whose work I always enjoy in Urban Milwaukee!
Noth, Horne, and Murphy all have distinctive voices. This is especially important here in Milwaukee, where the local daily rarely features distinctive voices.