journalism, investigative journalism, election integrity, wisconsin watch, wcij

WCIJ partners with Center for Journalism Ethics on election integrity project

Jul. 14, 2020

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and the Center for Journalism Ethics at UW-Madison are partnering on a project to support election integrity this fall, the organizations have announced.

The effort, supported by $83,000 in funding from Craig Newmark Philanthropies, will focus on developing election integrity resource kits for citizens and journalists in addition to investigative reporting on voting issues in Wisconsin. Howard Hardee, a former Wisconsin State Journal reporter and current local news fellow at First Draft News, will be the lead reporter on the project.

capitol report, wispolitics

Fifty-two ‘gap-filing’ exemptions the latest in biofuels debate

Jul. 14, 2020

The EPA Small Refinery Exemptions update in mid-June shows the agency was considering 52 exemption petitions for Renewable Fuel Standard compliance in a big chunk of the 2010s — actions that could hurt a Wisconsin ethanol industry just beginning to come back from a pandemic-induced hit.

Jim Pumarlo

Is your newspaper capturing all community voices?

Jul. 13, 2020

Are all your readers’ voices represented in your newspaper’s coverage? Providing as many perspectives as possible is the foundation of a well-rounded story.

Journalism trainer Jim Pumarlo provides some suggestions on how to make sure your newsroom is best representing the local landscape.

Peter Kwong

Water is free, so why do people pay for it?

Jul. 13, 2020

In a sense, water is free and should be free, right? So, what’s with these bottled waters all of a sudden? That folks would pay good money for something that is free? And it has developed to be a trend and fashionable.

False conspiracies swirl as Wisconsin contact tracers battle coronavirus

Jul. 13, 2020

Conspiracy theories about contact tracing have percolated on social media since early May, after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published guidelines on how state health authorities should implement this “core disease control measure” to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has killed at least 130,000 Americans — including about 800 Wisconsinites, according to government estimates.

Former Kenosha News reporter Arlene Jensen dies at 82

Jul. 10, 2020

Arlene Carol Jensen, who worked for more than three decades as a reporter for the Kenosha News, died Friday, Feb. 28, at Saint Mary’s Hospital in Janesville. She was 82.

While working at a Kenosha radio station in the early 1960s, she met Donald Jensen of Racine, and they were married Dec. 9, 1967, in Kenosha. After they settled on Kenosha’s west side, Jensen joined the Kenosha News, where she worked for 35 years as a reporter.

Al Cross

Amid bad news, a permanent solution to a temporary problem

Jul. 9, 2020

Since fall 2018, 300 more U.S. newspapers have disappeared, bringing the number over the last 15 years to 2,100. That’s almost 25% of the 9,000 newspapers that were published in 2005, writes Al Cross director of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

The coronavirus pandemic and its economic impact has made it clear that the choices we make — as citizens, policymakers and industry leaders — will determine the future of the local news landscape.

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