The Recombobulation Area wins Milwaukee Press Club awards for the sixth consecutive year
The Milwaukee Press Club is the oldest continuously operating press club in North America, founded in 1885. The Recombobulation Area has now won 21 awards in six years.
The Recombobulation Area is a 19-time 21-TIME! Milwaukee Press Club award-winning opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. The Recombobulation Area is now part of Civic Media.
For the sixth 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 two awards for our work in 2025. Founding Editor Dan Shafer is up for “Best Columnist,” a first-time honor in that particular category, and contributor Emily Mills is up for “Best Single Editorial, Statement of Editorial Position or Opinion” for the column, “How AI is harming Wisconsin’s path to renewable energy.” Each of these awards came in the “Online” section, and we’ll find out at the upcoming 96th Annual Gridiron Awards Dinner if these honors are for Gold, Silver or Bronze.
This year’s awards dinner, held at The Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee on Friday, May 8, will feature 2026 Sacred Cat Award Honoree Astead Herndon, a host and editorial director at Vox, and 2026 Headliners community service awardees Ken-David Masur, music director and conductor with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; and Mary McCormick, executive director at Rotary Club of Milwaukee.
A full list of winners is available here.
The Recombobulation Area has now earned 21 honors from the Milwaukee Press Club in six years. Dan Shafer has now won 17 awards as part of The Recombobulation Area, which launched in 2019, and 24 awards overall, including for work at the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and ThirdCoast Digest, between 2011 and 2017.
These honors would not be possible without the incredible support of our readers, followers and subscribers. Being a reader-funded publication, it’s been those subscribers — it’s been you — who have powered these achievements.
We are endlessly grateful for your support of The Recombobulation Area, and we’re looking forward to producing more award-winning work in 2026.
Take a look back at previous winners here:
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. In 2024, he and the publication joined Civic Media, where he is currently a Contributing Editor. He’s 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 24 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.