I’m not going to deny that I was really psyched to learn that I had won the Hillman Foundation’s February Sidney Award for my coverage of the Wisconsin protests. But look, what made covering the Wisconsin standoff so rewarding and fun was the crowdsourcing.
A number of online media outlets and blogs were quick to recognize the national importance of this amazing story. Andy Kroll of Mother Jones, Eric Kleefeld of TPM, Amanda Terkel of Huffington Post, David Dayen of FireDogLake, Chris Bowers of DailyKos, Think Progress, Ezra Klein, Steve Benen, Dave Weigel, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WisPolitics and other Wisconsin media outlets, and a number of other blogs I’m stupidly leaving off this list provided a nonstop stream of scoops, perspective and required reading as they helped drive the story day in and day out.
But ultimately, it should go without saying that the ones who did all the real work in turning this into a major national story are the grassroots activists on the ground in the state, the state senate Democrats who went on the lam and risked a fierce national backlash in order to defend the rights of the state’s public employees, and most of all, the people of Wisconsin who supported them. Even opponents would have to concede that they did a pretty amazing job of winning the nation’s attention and sympathies.
