Examiner garners seven Milwaukee Press Club honors for journalism excellence

The staff of the Wisconsin Examiner. From left, Erik Gunn, Baylor Spears, Ruth Conniff, Henry Redman and Isiah Holmes. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

The Wisconsin Examiner won top honors for online investigative reporting, editorial writing and long feature writing at the annual Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism awards recognition dinner Friday evening.

This year’s edition of the Press Club’s annual contest recognizes work published during the 2023 calendar year . One of 50 state outlets launched by or partnered with the nonprofit States Newsroom , the Examiner competed in the Milwaukee Press Club contest’s category reserved for digital news organizations.

Reporter Baylor Spears took the Gold award for investigative reporting for her examination of a Milwaukee private school participating in the taxpayer-funded voucher system.

Former employees reported that understaffing, too many students and inadequate support created an unsafe, unstable educational environment for students and staff at the school.

Editor Ruth Conniff’s column headlined “Wisconsin is a major front in the war on U.S. Democracy” was named Gold winner for the best single editorial, statement of editorial position or opinion .

Conniff’s story about a police chase that took officers from the Dane County village of Maple Bluff far outside of their own community and totaled the vehicle of an uninvolved motorist garnered the Silver award for public service .

Police chases have come under scrutiny among policing experts, who say they should be restricted to serious threats involving people who have committed or are about to commit a violent felony.

Conniff also was recognized for her regular column in the Examiner, winning the Bronze  award for best column . Her entry consisted of a selection of six columns on subjects that ranged from child labor and the domestic politics of the conflict in Israel and Gaza to the threat political extremists pose to public education.

Deputy Editor Erik Gunn received three feature writing awards:

• Gold for long soft feature for his Thanksgiving Day story on Diana Butler Bass and her research on the subject of gratitude;
• Gold for personal profile for his story about an anthropologist whose experience as a father of a Down syndrome child led him to interrogate his profession’s attitudes toward disability and to write a memoir about what he learned in the process;
• Silver for short soft feature for his interview with a Wisconsin chef who organizes a year-round free meal program in addition to operating two restaurants.

The Examiner’s recognition in this year’s Milwaukee Press Club contest continues the news organization’s five-year record of award-winning journalism, which has included multiple awards for reporters Isiah Holmes and Henry Redman as well as Conniff and Gunn.

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