Briefing

Nearly 70 colleagues attended the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame banquet and fundraiser to pay tribute to their peers. The ceremony also took a moment to honor Hall of Fame member Bob Wills, a longtime open government champion and newspaper editor who died earlier this year.

This year’s class included Harland and Helen Everson, longtime publishers of The Edgerton Reporter; William “Bill” Hale, former owner of the Grant County Herald-Independent and other newspapers; Phil Haslanger, longtime editor and manager of The Capital Times; Margaret “Meg” Jones, former reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; J. Anthony Josey, founder of the state’s first successful newspaper, the Wisconsin Enterprise-Blade; and Lucius W. Nieman, founder of The Milwaukee Journal.

Current and former Milwaukee Journal Sentinel staffers have launched a scholarship fund in honor of longtime reporter Meg Jones, who will be inducted next week into the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame.

The scholarship will be awarded to journalism students from Wisconsin attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jones’ alma mater. Organizers hope to raise $50,000.

In the days leading up to Phil Haslanger's induction into the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame, the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication caught up with him to hear more about his career, including his story of working at The Capital Times on the last day they used typewriters in the newsroom.

Haslanger worked at The Capital Times from 1973 to 2008 as a reporter, city editor, editorial page editor and managing editor. He retired in 2008, but continues to work on behalf of the industry through his role as a board member of the UW-Madison Center for Journalism Ethics.

A state legislator appears to have been improperly given a special privilege when he was notified by the local police department that the Green Bay Press-Gazette planned to release a report alleging he abused his child and then let him add a statement to the documents.

Local public officials cited the statute requiring notification of elected officials who are the subject of open records requests. However, the law doesn't apply in this case because the legislator wasn't a public employee or official at the time the record was created — and he was never an employee of the police department, the newspaper reports.