We’re excited to announce that SWT is officially an award winner! The Milwaukee Press Club honored us on Friday during its Gridiron Awards Dinner, held at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The MPC is the oldest continuously operating press club in the US, starting in 1885!
During the night, three speakers were presented with a major award: Green Bay Packers President/CEO Mark Murphy (Headliner Award winner), CEO Emeritus of the Hunger Task Force Sherrie Tussler (Headliner Award winner), and co-founder/CEO of Axios Jim VandeHei (Sacred Cat Award).
Milwaukee Press Club also gave out their 2024 Awards for Excellence in Journalism. It was great to see that print and broadcast journalism are still alive and making quality content in modern times. You can find a full list of all the evening’s award winners here.
Going into the event, we took a lot of pride in knowing that we were one of three blogs recognized as a finalist for the Online category of Best Blog. SWT went up against two excellent blogs: Lee Matz’s of Milwaukee Independent for his blog Bearing Witness: A photojournalist’s journey documenting trauma and truth in Milwaukee and beyond, and Dan Shafer for his blog The Recombobulation Area. We recommend you read both.
In (to us, surprisingly) the only tie of the night, SWT and The Recombobulation Area both received Silver Award certificates (Bearing Witness won the Gold Award).
Below are a few personal thoughts from each of us:
Josh: It means a lot to win my first-ever award for my writing and for my hard work to be recognized. It’s even more special to get to share the honor and experience with Alex, whom I’ve known for over two decades and has really helped expand the music I listen to. I’m a big fan of Dan Shafer and The Recombobulation Area, so to be honored and mentioned in the same sentence is gratifying and makes me feel I’m on the right path. I’ve known Dan since we went to UW Oshkosh a couple of decades ago, so it was great to represent UWO. It’s been wonderful to learn about Lee’s great work as well. Despite some early nerves, I really enjoyed my experience at the dinner. Between getting to see Phister Hotel for the first time, hearing Mark, Sherrie, and Jim giving inspiring speeches, and witnessing the variety of people getting awards, it was a truly special evening. Plus, I won a book from Jim (another UWO grad!) and had a really nice chat with Mark.
Alex: Thank you to the MPC for recognizing us. It’s quite the honor in our first full year of existence. Josh and I are honored and beaming with pride. Thank you to every reader, every artist, and PR person who brought music to our attention and/or essay writing to our site. Both improved the quality of our content and introduced new music to us and our readers. Thank you for all you’ve done. We love to advocate for good music and good people. We look forward to adding more awards and recognition over the years.
Scummy Water Tower Productions co-founder, reviewer, business manager, and editor. Thank you for visiting this site: scummywatertower.com, and YouTube for Water Tower Sessions!
Contact me: alex@scummywatertower.com
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
