Dear Wisconsin news partners,
You asked for it. We delivered it. Now we want to make sure you know that you can use it.
For the past 15 years, Wisconsin Watch has made our high-quality, award-winning investigative journalism available to newspapers across the state for free. Last year alone our stories appeared in 132 newspapers.
However, we still hear concerns that our stories are too long. We began to address that concern several years ago by offering 1,700-word condensed versions of our longest investigations. But for some of our partners, that is still too long to fit into print. So we’ve continued to find ways to produce more concise reports.
This year we launched Forward, a weekly newsletter from our state team that comes out every Monday. Forward includes three modules: A top story with original reporting from state reporter Jack Kelly that looks ahead to a topic of upcoming interest; a secondary module from a rotating list of features including Bill Watch, Truth Sandwich and Ask Wisconsin Watch; and a third section featuring an informational graphic we call DataWatch. All of this is available for you to publish for free.
Last month the Daily Jefferson County Union did exactly what we hope more of you will consider. It published one of Jack’s top stories from Forward and used a DataWatch chart as the lead art.
And don’t forget our 150-word fact briefs produced by veteran reporter Tom Kertscher in partnership with Gigafact. These bite-sized briefs take claims from politicians or trending topics on social media and distill them into a simple yes-or-no question. You can find all of them here. The goal is to improve the information ecosystem so that we’re all operating from the same base of facts, a critical pillar of our democracy.
We’ll continue to produce the in-depth investigations that we’ve long been known for, but we hope you’ll also find value in this mix of shorter offerings. Thanks for your continued feedback — and for all that you do to serve your communities.
Sincerely,
George Stanley
Chief Executive Officer
Wisconsin Watch
