Wausau Daily Herald journalists honored with 7 awards in Wisconsin Newspaper Association competition

Tim Langton, Wausau Daily Herald
·4 min read
Little Willy, a sled dog, leaps in excitement while waiting to start a training run on Jan. 31, 2022, at Newton Marshall's home near Lily. Newton Marshall, who is a native of Jamaica, started racing dog sleds in 2005 and has been living and training in Wisconsin since June 2019.
Little Willy, a sled dog, leaps in excitement while waiting to start a training run on Jan. 31, 2022, at Newton Marshall's home near Lily. Newton Marshall, who is a native of Jamaica, started racing dog sleds in 2005 and has been living and training in Wisconsin since June 2019.

From government watchdog reporting to sled dog photojournalism, the staff at the Wausau Daily Herald had a busy year.

They were honored for their hard work on Friday at the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation's Better Newspaper Contest. Daily Herald staff collected seven awards and two honorable mentions. The awards included three first-place honors, in the categories of Business Coverage, General News Photo and Best Video.

Here's what to know about the Daily Herald's awards:

Business coverage and photojournalism net first-place honors for Daily Herald.

Former Daily Herald reporters Jay Stahl and Renee Hickman were honored for their coverage of Wausau business stories, including "catastrophic" staffing shortages businesses endured, redevelopment news at the former Wausau Center mall, and the new owners of a Wausau baked goods staple. Judges described their stories as "lively and quickly involved the reader with the people involved in these businesses."

Photojournalist Tork Mason took home two first-place awards for his work, including General News Photo for his shot of a couple very enthusiastic sled dogs as part of his photo gallery that went along with reporter Keith Uhlig's story about sled-dog racer Newton Marshall's journey from Jamaica to northern Wisconsin. The photo gallery itself also won third place in the Photo Gallery category. Mason also won top honors for his video about Marshall.

COVID-19, local government coverage get love from the judges.

The honors continued for the Daily Herald's Newton Marshall profile, with Uhlig's story earning a second-place finish in the Feature Story (Profile) category.

Former reporters Emalyn Muzzy and Hickman combined for a second-place award in the Reporting on Local Government category, with stories about Wausau's "affordable housing crisis," the elimination of Marathon County's Diversity Affairs Commission, and a clash between Wausau's mayor and Public Works director over PFAS contamination.

To round out the second-place awards, Uhlig, Hickman and former reporter Melissa Siegler were recognized in the Coronavirus Coverage category. Their reporting about the pandemic included looking at why two counties in Wisconsin had the lowest vaccination rates, how COVID-19 upended a Wausau teen's life, and the emotional strain central Wisconsin health care workers faced while working on the frontlines of the pandemic.

In addition to these awards, the Daily Herald received honorable mention in the Localized National Story category for Muzzy's affordable housing crisis story, and in the Sports Feature Story category for Uhlig's article on a Chippewa Falls teen who pushed her brother's wheelchair in cross-country races.

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USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin journalists earn three awards.

The Daily Herald is part of USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, comprising 10 newspapers including the Appleton Post-Crescent, Green Bay Press-Gazette and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

In addition to The Daily Herald's four awards, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin won three awards, including one first place.

What are the WNA awards, and how are they judged?

The awards were given during a ceremony Friday that capped WNA's annual convention at the Madison Concourse Hotel in Madison. The WNA Foundation is a nonprofit organization created in 1980 that works to improve Wisconsin’s newspaper enterprises.

Each year, newspapers from across the state can submit entries in editorial and advertising, and are divided into most categories based on readership size and daily versus weekly publications.

The contest for 2022 received 2,230 entries from 106 newspapers. The Daily Herald is in Division B, daily circulation less than 9,999.

The Arkansas Press Association judged this year's eligible entries, which were published between September 2021 and August 2022.

For more great Wisconsin journalism, peruse the WNA 2023 Better Newspaper Contest tab for a complete list of winners with judges' comments.

This article originally appeared on Wausau Daily Herald: Wausau Daily Herald wins 7 awards in Wisconsin newspaper content