The Recombobulation Area is a thirteen-time NINETEEN-TIME Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. The Recombobulation Area is now part of Civic Media.
For the fifth consecutive year, The Recombobulation Area is the winner of multiple awards in the Milwaukee Press Club’s annual “Excellence in Journalism” contest.
This year, The Recombobulation Area and Civic Media won a total of six awards. We will find out final placements for the awards — gold, silver or bronze — at the 95th Annual Gridiron Awards Dinner on May 9 at the Pfister Hotel in Downtown Milwaukee.
Dan Shafer, founder of The Recombobulation Area, won five awards. Angela Lang, a regular contributor at the publication and the executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, was honored for the second consecutive year in the “Best Single Editorial” category.
The Recombobulation Area’s six awards for the 2024 contest include the following (all in the “Online Exclusively” category):
Best Blog: Dan Shafer, “The Recombobulation Area”
Best Multi-Story Coverage of a Single Feature Topic or Event: Dan Shafer, “Wisconsin’s fight for new legislative maps”
Best Long Hard Feature Story: Dan Shafer, “Joy and Desperation in the Fox Valley”
Best Single Editorial, Statement of Editorial Position or Opinion: Angela Lang, “The tragedy and disappointment of the RNC in Milwaukee”
Best Single Editorial, Statement of Editorial Position or Opinion: Dan Shafer, “‘It’s a new day in Wisconsin.’ Your votes made that happen.”
Best Business or Consumer Story or Series: Dan Shafer, “SPECIAL REPORT: RNC bookings “underwhelming” and a “failure,” event venues and restaurants raise concerns”
A full list of winners is available here.
The Milwaukee Press Club is the oldest continuously operating press club in North America, formally established in 1885.
This is the fifth consecutive year in which The Recombobulation Area has been honored for its work by the Milwaukee Press Club. The publication has now earned 19 awards in five years. Dan Shafer has now won 16 awards as part of The Recombobulation Area, which launched in 2019, and 23 awards overall, including for work at the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and ThirdCoast Digest, between 2011 and 2017.
This marks the most awards The Recombobulation Area has received in a single year, with six. It’s also the first for the publication as part of Civic Media, which it joined in August 2024. Civic Media’s Earl Ingram was also honored with an award for “Best Regularly-Scheduled Audio Program.”
These awards would not be possible without the incredible support of our readers, followers and subscribers. Being a reader-funded publication, it’s been those subscribers who have powered these achievements. We are endlessly grateful for your support of The Recombobulation Area — especially now, as we celebrate our biggest year yet.
From the 2023 awards:
The Recombobulation Area wins one gold, two silver at Milwaukee Press Club awards
As a publication, The Recombobulation Area has won 13 awards from the Milwaukee Press Club in four years, including three gold and five silver honors.
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he became the Political Editor of Civic Media. He’s also written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 23 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer and at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social.
Congratulations! Well-deserved.