The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism raked in five awards from the Milwaukee Press Club’s annual Awards for Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism, which were announced today. The Center received three first-place awards — for best coverage of a single news topic or event, best innovative online feature, and best investigative story or series.

An Indiana deputy prosecutor and Republican activist resigned Thursday after the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism uncovered an email to Gov. Scott Walker in which he suggested a fake attack on the governor to discredit union protesters.

After praise for Walker, the email — sent Feb. 19, during union demonstrations against Walker’s budget repair bill — then took a darker turn. It suggested that the situation in Wisconsin presented “a good opportunity for what’s called a ‘false flag’ operation.” [This is the original version of the story which prompted Carlos Lam to resign.]

We read with interest the Associated Press story today analyzing the avalanche of emails to Gov. Scott Walker, since we published our story on that yesterday.

“Governor Walk, Hang in there, the American people are behind you, with you, and praying for you, don`t let those union scum sucking thugs push you around …” A selection of emails sent to Gov. Scott Walker from Feb. 11 to Feb. 18, 2011.

In the week after Gov. Scott Walker announced his plan to dramatically curtail public employees’ collective bargaining rights in the state budget repair bill, a wide majority of the emails to him expressed support, a Center analysis of those emails indicates. But that support was significantly boosted by emails from pro-Walker senders from outside Wisconsin.

Dave Zweifel, editor emeritus of The Capital Times, will be honored April 20 at the first Wisconsin Watchdog Awards reception and dinner, presented jointly by the nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.

Last week, I took off from the tumult of Madison for a few days to talk to undergraduate journalism students at Indiana University. I talked about what it’s like working at the Center as a reporter, multimedia producer and website manager. (Eventually, I hope to have time to think up a less cliched phrase than [...]