Staff Notes

STAFF NOTE: V1 Brings Home Five Statewide Media Awards, Pokes Stick in Eye of Big Cities

grabbing the spotlight for our neck of the woods, at least for a moment

Nick Meyer |

THE BIG LEAGUES. The Milwaukee Press Club's Gridiron Awards Dinner on May 6, 2022, at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee.
THE BIG LEAGUES. The Milwaukee Press Club's Gridiron Awards Dinner on May 6, 2022, at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee.

Wisconsin’s center of gravity when it comes to media – or heck, any number of industries – is really in the southeast corner of the state. As you might expect, Milwaukee and Madison tend to be where a lot of the action is whether we’re talking government, sports, education, the arts, or even beer. That’s why it’s always particularly satisfying when anyone from our neck of the woods grabs a bit of the spotlight away from those big-city folk and gets them wondering what good things might be happening upstate that they’re totally oblivious to. 

So today we’re happy to report that Volume One was able to do just that at this year’s Milwaukee Press Club Awards at the Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee on May 6. (You might wonder why V1 would be a part of the Milwaukee Press Club at all, but it’s the closest thing there is to a statewide Wisconsin press club, so here we are.) The organization consists of really all modes of media – magazines, newspapers, websites, TV, radio, all of it. So when we casually entered ourselves into a handful of categories this year, we knew we were going up against some of the biggest and best organizations in the state. And it turns out we did OK!

Volume One staff brought home three gold awards, one silver, and a bronze for categories ranging from writing to design to multimedia, and some of our contributing video work for PBS helped win gold for Best Documentary and silver for Best Video Feature Story. Our gold awards, including Best Overall Design, Best Website Design, and Best Sports Story(!), beat out the likes of the Cap Times, Wisconsin State Journal, Madison Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, and many others. Of course it’s not about beating them, it’s about holding our own among them – a crowd we’re very proud to be a part of. And when we know we publish our fair share of typos now and then, it’s nice to be reminded we can do good work as well!

So it’s our hope that even just a few more heads will now turn in the direction of Eau Claire and the Chippewa Valley to see all the cool stuff our community has going on up here. But if not, that’s fine too, we’ll all just keep doing our thing and enjoying what we all know we have.