Your WBA Foundation is adding the Eric Miller PantherVision Education Debt Relief Grant as the third such grant available to Wisconsin broadcasters looking to reduce their debt from post-secondary education.
The grant is available to television news producers, photojournalists, or video editors.
Funds for the grant were initially raised by a group of Miller’s classmates and his family in 2016. The money was managed by the Milwaukee Press Club Endowment and used for a scholarship awarded annually. At the request of Miller’s family, the money was recently transferred to the WBA Foundation and converted to a debt relief grant for working Wisconsin broadcasters.
“We are forever indebted to the Milwaukee Press Club Endowment for its careful stewardship of Eric’s scholarship fund,” Kris Miller, Eric’s mother, said. “We are proud of our past scholarship winners and are now thrilled to be able to help exceptional young professionals making a difference in television journalism.”
“Your WBA is honored to continue to this tribute to Eric Miller,” said WBA President and CEO Michelle Vetterkind. “This grant will support so many journalists looking to follow in his professional footsteps.”
The Results Broadcasting Education Grant was the first of the debt relief grants offered by the Foundation, established by Bruce and Don Grassman. The Boyd Huppert Education Debt Assistance Grant was added in 2024. The application window for all three grants is March 1-31. A single application for all three is available here.
Eric Miller died in 2016 at the age of 32. His life was short, but list of accomplishments endless.
Upon graduation from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Eric was a videographer, editor and producer for Rockwell Automation, a photojournalist/editor for WHNS-TV in South Carolina, and a producer and editor for Voice of America.
Then came the plum assignment befitting Eric’s extraordinary talent: photojournalist and editor for Al Jazeera English network’s flagship daily program Riz Kahn, and its premier weekly program, Riz Kahn’s One on One.
Eric traveled the world with Riz, one of the world’s most distinguished journalists, hauling cameras and sound equipment, producing, filming, and directing interviews with world leaders, kings, princes and princesses, actors, and sports stars. He idolized Stephen Hawking and Steven Spielberg and got to interview them both. His sister idolized Antonio Banderas, so Eric had him sing happy birthday to her on tape. His steady and courageous video as shots were being fired as the breakout of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai was seen around the world; and when interviewed on one of the Milwaukee television stations about it, he thanked UWM for his great journalism education.
Eric was an unapologetic champion of the cold, hard facts. He was uncompromising about the truth and believed it is vitally important for our country, and our world, that inconvenient truths be spoken loudly. From covering economic forums in Switzerland to the terror attacks in Mumbai, Eric worked to craft careful journalistic narratives that would transport us and give us a worldly view of truth. A man who was deeply dissatisfied with the injustices he saw in the world and personally hurt when humanity failed to live up to his expectations, he believed in speaking truth to power. As a student and as an alum, Eric was UWM PantherVision’s biggest supporter and cheerleader. PantherVision was a student-produced that garnered more than 200 journalistic awards in its 20 years. In 2014, PantherVision made history by becoming the only collegiate news organization to win a professional national Edward R. Murrow Award. Eric would be proud that the newscast’s name lives along with his.
