May was a big month of award winning for the WORT news team! We picked up awards for several different reports over a wide range of topics.

Both the Milwaukee Press Club awards and the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association awards are statewide competitions recognizing excellent reporting from the last year. We competed against radio news departments with significantly larger budgets and staff. Here’s a recap:

Milwaukee Press Club Awards

Gold award for best use of audio with in a report — Julie Garrett for Five Minutes on the Farm. This was a weekly feature on the local news in which Julie visited farmers around Wisconsin to get a sense of daily life on small, Wisconsin farms.

Silver award for Best Coverage of a Single or Ongoing Breaking News Story — Nina Kravinsky for reporting on the Foxconn development in Racine County. Our coverage of the state’s largest-ever economic development deal dove into not just the economic impacts of the project, but the environmental impacts as well.

Bronze award for Best Short Hard Feature Story — Molly Stentz for a report on a new weapon the Madison Police Department is using. Molly was the first journalist to cover this “less lethal” weapon and reported on both it’s advantages and pitfalls.

Bronze award for Best Series Reporting — Nina Kravinsky for ongoing reporting of Wisconsin’s counties suing big pharmaceutical companies for the opioid crisis. Around three quarters of counties in the state have filed suits, all alleging that misinformation on the part of manufacturers of drugs like OxyContin and Percoset led to an epidemic.

Bronze award for Best Long Soft Feature Story — Alejandro Alonso Galva and Sarah Hopeful for an obituary of Clyde Stubblefield. The colorful and heartfelt report remembers the musical legend.

Wisconsin Broadcasters Association

2nd Place for Best Hard News/Investigative Report — Nina Kravinsky for opioid crisis coverage.