Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service reporter and Diederich College of Communication alumna PrincessSafiya Byers was honored with the Gerald Loeb Award for her collaboration with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on landlord-tenant coverage. The Loeb Award is often referred to as the “Pulitzer Prize of business reporting.”
Byers, Comm ’20, teamed up with Journal Sentinel reporters Daphne Chen, Cary Spivak and Genevieve Redsten to examine Vinebrook Homes Trust, a multibillion-dollar, private equity-backed firm that quietly bought about 1,000 single-family homes in the city before running into financial trouble.
The Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, housed in Johnston Hall, is an award-winning nonprofit newsroom that serves, elevates and amplifies the voices of underserved Black and Latinx residents through fact-based, nonpartisan reporting.
Other finalists in the Loeb local news category were Public Health Watch and a collaboration between Capital & Main and ProPublica.
“This project represents what happens when you unleash the powers of partnership and focus on serving readers,” said Ron Smith, executive director of the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. “Instead of competing, this collaboration drew on the strengths of both newsrooms to collectively inform Milwaukee residents.”
Byers, 26, covers housing and basic needs issues.
“The work we do at Milwaukee NNS is authentic,” Byers said. “We tell stories with the genuine interest of informing and celebrating Milwaukee. It’s a rare experience to work for an organization that cares about the people it serves as much as NNS does.”
