Wilson recognized by international group for editorial writing
The Star News news editor Brian Wilson was recognized for outstanding editorial writing during the annual conference of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors (ISWNE).
This year’s conference was held June 21–25 in Reno, Nev. and included newspaper professionals and scholars from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Mongolia and Nepal.
Wilson was recognized as one of the “Golden Dozen” winners which include the 12 best editorials as picked by this year’s judge Brian Duggan.
Duggan is the general manager of KUNR Public Radio and is an award-winning newsroom leader with more than 15 years of experience, most of it covering Northern Nevada as a journalist. Prior to joining KUNR, he served as the executive editor of the Reno Gazette-Journal, a news organization where he worked as an investigations editor and a city reporter.
Wilson’s editorial, “Tragedy is a wake-up call” appeared in the May 5, 2022 issue of The Star News. It was written in response to the senseless murder of Lilly Peters of Chippewa Falls.
The judge wrote: “After a young girl was killed in an act of violence, Brian Wilson used his editorial’s platform to call on his community to look beyond just punishing the person responsible and look at the reasons why the crime happened in the first place.”
In accepting the award, Wilson stated: “Lilly Peters was 10 years old.
On April 24, 2022, she went missing. As happens when a white girl from the ‘good family’ goes missing, a massive search took place and the story was picked up by other media outlets and spread.
Her body was found the next morning hidden under some brush just off the trail.
The following day her 14 year old cousin was arrested for the murder and rape of Lilly Peters in what court documents say was a premeditated crime. He currently awaits trial in adult court.
In a society that grows ever more jaded with each new horror that is reported and each new scandal and sorrow, crimes like those committed against Lilly Peters cause us to come to a full stop.
In that pause, the quiet ebb between the waves of societal sewage that passes for broadcast news, it is necessary to look beyond purely external displays of grief and mourning.
Tie your ribbon, if that allows you some measure of relief in a world where monsters pass among us.
Hold your children a few moments longer when you hug them goodnight, if that will help you sleep, knowing that other parents will never get the chance again.
But above all else, go beyond the surface grief and rage and desire for vengeance. Swallow those emotions, for now, and instead look at it analytically to learn for the signs and warnings so that others do not have to suffer.
And above all else making it a priority to invest in the mental health services and personnel to provide the intervention for those whose minds are sick.”
This is the seventh time Wilson has been recognized with a Golden Dozen Award. He was previously recognized in 2008, 2009, 2013, 2015 and 2018. He won the Golden Quill award in 2020.
Wilson was not the only writer from central Wisconsin honored. Peter Weinschenk who worked as the editor of The Record-Review newspaper serving western Marathon County communities was a Golden Dozen recipient for an editorial “We seek justice” which ran September 14, 2022 and was about the inmates in the county jail system who sometimes wait years for a trial. “At its core, it gives voice to those who don’t have one,” the judge wrote.
Both The Star News and The Record-Review are owned by the O’Leary family.
ISWNE is based at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin, Mo. and has the mission to “encourage and promote wise and independent editorial comment, news content and leadership in community newspapers throughout the world.”
