Urban Milwaukee Wins Press Club Awards

Urban Milwaukee won three awards from annual statewide journalism competition by the Milwaukee Press Club.

Graham Kilmer, who primarily covers county government for Urban Milwaukee, won the silver award for Best Short Hard Feature Story, for “On The Front Lines of Overdose Crisis,” in which two members of the Milwaukee Overdose Response Initiative talked frankly about the difficulty of their jobs. He also won the bronze award for Best Short Soft Feature Story, for “Marine Historical Society Launches ‘Little Boat I’ in Lake Michigan,” a whimsical piece about a local maritime history group that launched the “Little Toot” model boat into the lake.

And Dominique Paul Noth, Urban Milwaukee’s theater and film critic, won the gold award for Best Critical Review, for “Chamber Theatre Not Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” reviewing the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre‘s revival of the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, performed in January-February of 2023. This is the third time Noth has won a Press Club award for this theater criticism for Urban Milwaukee.

Noth’s latest review also got special mention from James Bennet, who won the Press Club’s annual Sacred Cat award given to a national journalist of distinction. Bennet, senior editor for The Economist, former editorial page of The New York Times, and before that editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, noted that he read some of the award winning stories, offering praise of journalism in Wisconsin. He singled out Noth, saying he enjoyed his review of the Virginia Woolf production, and was glad to see there was still cultural journalism being produced at the local level.

The annual awards banquet, held at the Pfister Hotel on Friday, also presented Headliner awards to former Green Bay Packer LeRoy Butler and longtime Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce President Tim Sheehy, who retired this year.

Bennett discussed the controversy in 2020 surrounding his decision to run an editorial by Republican US Senator Tom Cotton urging military intervention in response to protests that turn violent, which led to complaints from New York Times readers and staff and to Bennett’s resignation. He praised the Press Club award winners for reminding him “why the fight is worth it” and received a standing ovation from the crowd.