'Red Bull Rising' Blogger Wins Mil-journalism Award

Military Reporters and Editors (M.R.E.) has announced that the Red Bull Rising blog will be recognized with the association's first-ever award for independent blogging at the group's 10th annual conference in Washington, D.C., Oct. 18-19, 2012.

For a full list of MRE contest winners, click here. This year's MRE awards recognize work published or aired in 2011.

Judges cited the mil-blogger's voice as "down-home storyteller and conversationalist. You can almost hear him talking to you as you read. He has wry, friendly, sometimes corny sense of humor, a deft touch for detail; insider insight and knowledge; a tender touch with conveying emotion without getting sappy; and a way of getting to the bottom of things."

The winning Red Bull Rising entry may have been "Scenes from a Homecoming Ceremony," which was published on the blog on Jul. 15, 2011. The post relates anecdotes and observations from the Boone, Iowa homecoming of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT).

A second entry, "A Hard Turn at Najil" May 17, 2011, was also cited by judges in comments. The blog post regarded a day-long visit with the troops at Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment (1-133rd Reg.) at a small Combat Operations Post ("COP") in Eastern Afghanistan. The  article subsequently appeared on Garry Trudeau's/Doonesbury's "The Sandbox" on June 21, 2011.

The MRE blogging award, which carries with it a $500 prize, was underwritten by Lanterloon, an online military-writers' magazine that promotes individuals' use of online media for journalistic purposes. The publishers of Lanterloon also organized last month's Sangria Summit: A Military Writers' Conference, and entered into an ongoing sponsorship agreement with Red Bull Rising.

The MRE mission is "to advance public understanding of the military, national security and homeland defense; to educate and share information with its members and the public on best practices, tools and techniques for such coverage; to represent the interests of working journalists to the government and military; and to assure that journalists have access to places where the U.S. military and its allies operate."

Judges for the MRE competition were members of the Washington, D.C.-based National Security Journalism Initiative, an extension of the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.:

• Professor Ellen Shearer, co-director of the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative.
• Lecturer Timothy McNulty, co-director of Medill National Security Journalism Initiative.
• Assistant Professor Scott Anderson, interactive web producer, Medill National Security Journalism Initiative.