Diederich College of Communication Alumna PrincessSafiya Byers was known in her undergraduate years as being an intern for Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, but four years after graduation, she is now known as a winner of what is sometimes referred to as the Pulitzer for business reporting.
This past fall, she was honored in New York City with the award for collaborating with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to write a package of stories about landlord and tenant issues, which included “This company quietly became a major Milwaukee landlord. What happens now that it’s losing millions?”
The late Gerald Loeb, a writer and Wall Street trader, created the journalistic Gerald Leob Awards to encourage reporting on business and finance that informs and protects private investors and the general public. The awards are administered by the UCLA Anderson School of Management and distributed at a ceremony in New York City.
Byers graduated from Marquette in 2020 and has since been working for NNS as a full-time news reporter. She covers a variety of beats from health to minority businesses but has a passion for writing about housing.
“I learned a lot [volunteering with unhoused folks], so I really wanted to do housing,” Byers said.
Byers said that during her time at Marquette, she volunteered at The Gathering, where she fed unhoused individuals. Her volunteer work taught her a lot about the homeless and motivated her to cover housing in her work.
“I didn’t realize you have to be without somewhere to live for two full years before you can get resources,” Byers said. “You’re considered homeless after two full years, so you have to be without a home to even start to get resources for two years first.”
The story was a collaborative effort between Byers with NNS and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The Journal Sentinel provided the data about VineBrook Homes Trust while she focused on speaking to impacted sources.
Byers’ story discusses how VineBrook, a multi-billionaire real estate company based in Texas, has been buying a majority of homes in Milwaukee and raising the prices. It includes both tenants’ relationships with VineBrook and opinions of people who live in neighborhoods where VineBrook has purchased homes.
“I did what NNS does best, talking to the community. I really just went out, did some door knocking, called some folks that I knew that worked in housing,” Byers said. “That was my part. Really just talking to people, adding those human voices to the story.”
Byers is a Milwaukee native, which motivates her passion and knowledge about connecting with members of the community who raised her. She said this is why it was not difficult to get residents to talk to her. One thing she found out was that some people she interviewed were not aware of who their landlord was.
“Folks didn’t know who owned their homes, so they didn’t quite know what they were talking about. So that was just something really interesting that I found in talking to people and being like, ‘How do you like your landlord?’ And people were like, ‘I have no idea who my landlord is,’” Byers said.
Ron Smith, executive director for NNS, said he first met Byers when she was interning for NNS as an undergraduate student at Marquette.
“She [was] very quiet, but what I later learned is that Princess is not quiet, she’s discerning. She knows when to talk and when to interject,” Smith said.
Smith said NNS has grown a lot since Byers was hired as their first full-time reporter.
“It’s been amazing watching her grow and go,” Smith said. “She cares about the community.”
Roughly two years ago, Byers wrote a story that centered around poverty rates. Smith said one of Byers’ sources was a man who was in and out of the foster care system and illiterate. After the story came out, she met up with the man again to read it to him since he couldn’t himself.
Smith said NNS sees their readers and sources as their neighbors and aims to connect with them in ways that might be different from news organizations.
“[The award] shows what journalists can do when we collaborate, so I love that part of working with the Journal Sentinel, which brought in their own expertise with database reporting,” Smith said.
Smith said that NNS and the Journal Sentinel have two different audiences, and their collaborative efforts not only won an award, but brought together different types of readers.
“I think that needs to be the new model of journalism, where we can complete and not compete,” Smith said.
Byers receiving the Leob Award is not the only time NNS has won a national award, but Smith said this one was special because it was an extra way of showcasing NNS’ emphasis on community connection.
This story was written by Ellie Golko. She can be reached at elizabeth.golko@marquette.edu.
