Dick Wheeler

The award is part of the second annual Wisconsin Watchdog Awards reception and dinner, presented jointly on Wednesday, April 25, by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the Madison Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Gwyn Guenther, Wheeler’s daughter, will accept the award.

“Dick Wheeler devoted his life to covering the state Legislature, in particular, and was a passionate defender of the public’s right to know what their government was up to,” said Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. “He was a tough but fair reporter, and he did more than anyone to shed light on the workings of Wisconsin government. The entire state owes him a debt of gratitude.”

“Dick was always willing to share with other journalists his extensive knowledge of Wisconsin politics and legislative procedure,” said Mark Pitsch, assistant city editor of the Wisconsin State Journal and president of the Madison Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. “Moreover, he earned respect from each side of the political aisle and across state agencies under several administrations.”

Wheeler, who died on Nov. 11 at age 67, launched the Wheeler Report in 1972, after having covered state legislatures in Ohio and Michigan. It began as a mimeographed write-up that was mailed to subscribers each day. Later it was sent out by fax, then email, which is how it is distributed today. The Wheeler Report also maintains a robust website, tracking state news.

Often, Wheeler was the first member of the public to receive important government documents such as audits, legislation and fiscal analyses, which he immediately posted to his website for others to see. The Wheeler Report remains one of the state’s most comprehensive sources of information about state government.

The Wisconsin Watchdog Awards, a celebration of investigative reporting and open government, will feature a keynote address by Walt Bogdanich, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate. Bogdanich is a New York Times investigations editor and former investigative producer for 60 Minutes and ABC News.

Walt Bogdanich

Also, winners of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council’s annual Opee Awards will be recognized for their work promoting open government

The event at the Madison Club, 5 E. Wilson St., is sponsored by the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, Wisconsin Broadcasters Association and the law firm McGillivray Westerberg and Bender. The evening will begin with a reception at 5 p.m., followed by dinner at 6. Tickets are available for $55.

Register online here. Attendance is limited to 120 and organizers expect all tickets will be sold.

Sponsors are being sought for the Wisconsin Watchdog Awards. Information is available here.

In addition to speaking at the Wisconsin Watchdog Awards, Bogdanich will appear on a panel as part of the 120th anniversary celebration of The Daily Cardinal, a UW-Madison campus newspaper. Three days of events, including an open house, drinks and dancing, are planned for April 26 through 28.

Walt Bogdanich

Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate Walt Bogdanich will deliver the keynote address at the second annual Wisconsin Watchdog Awards on April 25.

Bogdanich is a New York Times investigations editor and former investigative producer for 60 Minutes and ABC News.

The Wisconsin Watchdog Awards reception and dinner is presented jointly by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the Madison Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

“Walt Bogdanich is one of the world’s greatest investigative journalists, and his work has helped save lives and expose wrongdoing,” said Andy Hall, the Center’s executive director.

“We’re honored to have him back in Madison.”

The Wisconsin Watchdog Awards, a celebration of investigative reporting and open government, is open to the public, with proceeds supporting the nonprofit and nonpartisan Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

The event at the Madison Club, 5 E. Wilson St., is sponsored by the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, Wisconsin Broadcasters Association and McGillivray Westerberg & Bender.

The evening will begin with a reception at 5 p.m., followed by dinner at 6. Tickets are available for $55. Register online here. Attendance is limited to 120 and organizers expect all tickets will be sold.

The recipient of the 2012 Distinguished Wisconsin Watchdog Award will be announced soon. Subscribe to the Center’s email newsletter to be notified when the announcement has been made.

Also at the event, winners of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council’s annual Opee Awards will be recognized for their work promoting open government.

In addition to speaking at the Wisconsin Watchdog Awards, Bogdanich will appear on a panel as part of the 120th anniversary celebration of The Daily Cardinal. Three days of events, including an open house, drinks and dancing, are planned for April 26 through 28.

Bogdanich graduated from UW-Madison in 1975 with a degree in political science. He received a master’s in journalism from Ohio State University in 1976.

In 2008, Bogdanich won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for the series “A Toxic Pipeline,” which tracked how dangerous and poisonous pharmaceutical ingredients from China have flowed into the global market. Bogdanich also won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for National Reporting for his series “Death on the Tracks,” which examined the safety record of the U.S. railroad industry, and in 1988 for Specialized Reporting, for his articles in The Wall Street Journal on substandard medical laboratories. He has also won four George Polk Awards, an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, and an Overseas Press Club award.

Sponsors are being sought for the Wisconsin Watchdog Awards. Information is available here.

Eligibility is limited to undergraduate and graduate students who are enrolled, at the time of application, in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where the Center is based.

By reaching that level, the Center receives a matching grant from the Challenge Fund for Journalism – a consortium of the Ford, McCormick, and Ethics and Excellence in Journalism foundations.

The Center, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization, was among 13 nonprofit journalism organizations working in youth media, ethnic media, and investigative reporting to receive a total of $875,819 in challenge grants in early 2010.

Piloted in 2004, the grant program was introduced amid extraordinary and difficult changes in the news media profession.

Not only have journalism organizations seen a significant decline in financial support from corporate and philanthropic sources, but also a severe contraction in the industry as a whole. The program was intended to help organizations build their capacity, to expand and diversify their financial base of support.

Andy Hall, the Center’s executive director, thanked individual donors, foundations, the Center’s staff and board members, corporate donors and other nonprofit news organizations for helping the Center achieve its goal.

Perhaps the greatest value of the grant is that it encouraged the Center, with help from consultants at New York City-based TCC Group,  to change its business operations, Hall said. While increasing its technological capacity, the Center expanded its board of directors by two members to increase its money-raising clout. The Center also retained a fundraising consultant and is creating a new staff position — public engagement director — to raise the quality and profile of its journalism and enhance its ability to generate revenue.

Prior to receiving the grant, the Center had received five streams of revenue — foundations, individual contributors, board contributors, corporate funds and major donors. Now, the Center relies upon eight streams, having expanded the five existing forms while adding earned income (received in exchange for producing investigative reports), sponsorships and events.

Hall noted that earned income accounted for more than 60 percent of the funds raised to meet the goal — a sign of the value that others attach to the Center’s award-winning work. Providers of that income include the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity; nonprofit MapLight, which is a partner in the Center’s Money and Politics Project supported by the Open Society Institute; and WBEZ Public Media in Chicago.

As a matter of policy, the Center discloses all of its supporters to protect the integrity of its journalism.

Information on how to support the Center is available here.

Since its launch in 2009, the Center has produced more than 45 major reports and two dozen columns focusing upon government integrity, with a special emphasis upon the role of money in politics and policymaking, and quality of life issues including the environment, education and health. Its reports have been used by more than 150 news organizations worldwide and have reached an estimated audience of more than 18 million people.

The Center collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where it is housed.

Eligibility is limited to undergraduate and graduate students who are enrolled, at the time of application, in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where the Center is based.

“As we’ve seen in recent months, political issues in Wisconsin resonate across America and even worldwide,” said Andy Hall, the Center’s founder and executive director.

“The Center’s award-winning coverage will continue to be distributed to Wisconsin news organizations, but now may be seen by many millions of people through the arrangement with Thomson Reuters.”

The 30 news organizations sharing coverage are members of the Investigative News Network, a consortium of nonprofit news centers that negotiated the arrangement on their behalf.

Kevin Davis, chief executive officer of the Investigative News Network, said that in addition to reaching a potential audience of up to a billion people, the U.S. news centers will receive valuable access to Thomson Reuters news coverage and photos.

And eventually, the arrangement may boost the centers’ financial strength, Davis said. The centers may receive a share of revenue Thomson Reuters acquires from its clients, to subsidize the centers’ newsgathering expenses.

Davis said the amount of potential revenue is unknown.

“But there’s only one way we’re going to find out,” Davis said. “And that’s through these types of relationships.”

Among the participating Investigative News Network members are the Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Investigative Reporting, the St. Louis Beacon, and the Rocky Mountain Investigative News Network.

“Publishers are telling us investigative news is extremely valuable, but seems to be the first thing cut when resources get tight,” Chris Ahearn, president of Media for Thomson Reuters, said in a news release. “The new relationship with INN is another step towards addressing the market’s need and providing our clients with stories they won’t find anywhere else.”

About the Investigative News Network

INN is a growing consortium of non-profit news organizations in North America that produces nonpartisan investigative and public service journalism on a local, regional and national basis. It is composed of more than 50 news organizations that create long-form and ongoing stories that keep communities informed on the issues they most care about. For more information, go to www.investigativenewsnetwork.org.

About Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is a leading global source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. It combines industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to decisionmakers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, healthcare, and science and media markets, powered by one of the world’s most trusted news organizations.  With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs more than 55,000 people and operates in more than 100 countries. For more information, go to thomsonreuters.com.

About the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

The Center (www.wisconsinwatch.org) was launched in January 2009 to examine government integrity and issues affecting the quality of life of Wisconsin residents. It currently has two full-time employees – executive director Andy Hall and reporter Kate Golden – as well as a pool of volunteer journalists and media lawyers and paid student reporting interns. In mid-June, it will add award-winning journalist Bill Lueders to its staff, to lead a new project examining the influence of money in politics and policymaking in Wisconsin.

The Center is based in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, and mainstream and ethnic media across Wisconsin and the nation.

The Center publicly acknowledges all of its donors, to increase the transparency — and protect the integrity — of its public-interest journalism. The Center is supported by foundations and individuals, including Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, Foundation to Promote Open Society (a partner of Open Society Institute), McCormick Foundation and Ford Foundation. Connect with the Center on Twitter and Facebook.

Bill Lueders

Award-winning journalist Bill Lueders, the longtime news editor of Isthmus weekly newspaper in Madison, is joining the staff of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, to lead a new project examining the influence of money in Wisconsin state politics and policymaking.

Lueders will begin his role in mid-June after 25 years at Isthmus, where he received dozens of state and national reporting awards and authored three books.

“Bill Lueders excels at holding powerful officials – politicians, judges, law-enforcement officers and corporate leaders – accountable for their actions,” said Andy Hall, executive director and founder of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

“Working in the public’s interest, he’ll shine a light into the operations of Wisconsin’s government.”

At the nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization, Lueders will lead its Money and Politics project and contribute to other investigative work.

The project was in development for more than a year before it was unveiled in April.

Under an agreement with MAPLight.org, a nonpartisan and nonprofit research organization based in Berkeley, Calif., the Center will produce investigative coverage and serve as a resource to news organizations in Wisconsin. The project is supported with a grant from the Open Society Institute.

MAPLight’s engineers have built a website, www.maplight.org/wisconsin, that for the first time combines three databases of information – campaign contributions, legislative votes, and interest group support and opposition – revealing the intersection between money and votes in the Wisconsin Legislature. The site allows users – the public and journalists alike – to customize their searches and download the data.

“No issue is more fundamental to our democracy than the process through which laws, policies and decisions get made,” said Lueders, who since 2004 has served as the elected president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, a nonprofit, statewide group that works to protect public access to meetings and records.

“My goal will be to use this tremendous new resource to tell stories about how that process works, and how it can be corrupted.”

Lueders, 51, has won statewide honors for legal reporting, investigative reporting, business reporting and interpretative reporting, and national awards for column writing and reporting on animal issues. He is the author of three books: An Enemy of the State: The Life of Erwin Knoll, Cry Rape: One Woman’s Harrowing Quest for Justice, and Watchdog: 25 Years of Muckraking and Rabblerousing.

About the Center: The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.wisconsinwatch.org) was launched in January 2009 to examine government integrity and issues affecting the quality of life of Wisconsin residents. It currently has two full-time employees – Hall and reporter Kate Golden – as well as a pool of volunteer journalists and media lawyers and paid student reporting interns.

The Center is based in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, and mainstream and ethnic media across Wisconsin and the nation.

The Center publicly acknowledges all of its donors, to increase the transparency — and protect the integrity — of its public-interest journalism. The Center is supported by foundations and individuals, including Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, Foundation to Promote Open Society (a partner of Open Society Institute), McCormick Foundation and Ford Foundation. Connect with the Center on Twitter and Facebook.

MAPLight.org's new Wisconsin site

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization today announced a major initiative to help the public and journalists investigate the influence of money in Wisconsin state politics and policymaking.

MAPLight.org unveiled a new site, www.maplight.org/wisconsin, that for the first time combines three databases of information – campaign contributions, legislative votes, and interest group support and opposition – revealing the intersection between money and votes in the Wisconsin Legislature. The site allows users to customize their searches and download the data.

“The goal of our Wisconsin site is to provide quick and easy access to information about campaign contributions, the interests of the groups that make them, and how the lawmakers that receive them vote, drawing back the curtain on how money influences legislation around the issues that people care most about,” said Daniel Newman, executive director of MAPLight.org, which is based in Berkeley, Calif.

Under an agreement with MAPLight.org, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism will investigate money and politics issues and serve as a resource to news organizations in Wisconsin. The project, which has been in the works for more than a year, is supported with a grant from the Open Society Institute.

“By centralizing data on contributions and votes, and combining that information with research on interest group bill support and opposition, MapLight.org will provide Wisconsin’s watchdogs with insights critical to the functioning of our democracy, in a fraction of the time it would take to otherwise assemble these facts from disparate sources,” said Andy Hall, executive director of the Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that launched in 2009.

MAPLight.org’s data partner for campaign contributions is the nonprofit Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

Mike McCabe, Wisconsin Democracy Campaign’s executive director, said the “collaboration creates new opportunities for investigative journalism and citizen exploration of the impact of special interest money in Wisconsin politics.”

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism focuses upon government integrity and quality of life issues. It collaborates with the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where it is based, Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television and other mainstream and ethnic news organizations across the nation.

The Center publicly acknowledges all of its donors, to increase the transparency — and protect the integrity — of its public-interest journalism. The Center is supported by foundations and individuals, including Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, Foundation to Promote Open Society (a partner of Open Society Institute), McCormick Foundation and Ford Foundation. Connect with the Center on Twitter and Facebook.

The award recognized the Center’s extensive coverage of perinatal depression among low-income mothers, Wisconsin’s high suicide rates and elevated suicide rates among Native Americans in Wisconsin and nationwide.

NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is a nonprofit, grassroots organization that strives to improves the lives of people living with serious mental illness.

In accepting the award April 5 at NAMI’s awards dinner, the Center’s executive director, Andy Hall, and reporter and multimedia manager, Kate Golden, dedicated it to the families who shared their stories to foster public understanding of suicides and perinatal depression and potential strategies for prevention. They also recognized work of former Center reporting interns Sara Jerving and Allie Tempus, who wrote the stories; and news organizations that collaborated on the coverage, including Wisconsin Public Radio, IndianCountryTV.com, Wisconsin Public Television and Native America Calling.

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.

Sharing in the awards were eight graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication for work produced as reporting interns or as students collaborating with the Center.

The details:

• First place, best coverage of a single news topic or event: Former intern Jacob Kushner, Center reporter and multimedia manager Kate Golden, Capitol News Connection reporter Manuel Quinones, Center executive director Andy Hall, volunteer interns coordinators Robert Gutsche Jr. and Dee J. Hall, and Center freelancer Jake Naughton, for our Dairyland Diversity series, about Wisconsin dairies’ growing reliance upon immigrant workers. The six-part series was published in 2009 and 2010 and was launched with assistance from The Country Today, a newspaper focusing upon agricultural and rural issues. The award is for stories released in 2010:

Part 1: Immigrants now 40 percent of dairy work force – Nov. 4, 2009
Part 2: A delicate existence: Undocumented and living on a Wisconsin dairy farm – Nov. 11, 2009
Part 3: Undocumented and driving without a license – Dec. 16, 2009
Part 4: Immigrants help Wisconsin dairy farms. Will Congress help them? – April 12, 2010
Part 5: Wisconsin’s dairy farms are growing — along with their immigrant work forces – May 26, 2010
Part 6: Immigrant dairy workers transform a rural Wisconsin community – July 11, 2010

• First place, best innovative online feature: Kate Golden, for her Dairyland Diversity interactive graphic, The changing landscape of Wisconsin dairy farms.

• First place, best investigative story or series: UW-Madison journalism graduates Adam Riback, Bob Marshall and Lavilla Capener; and former Center interns Alex Morrell and Allie Tempus, for ‘Smart drug’ abuse rising on campuses, about the growing use and abuse of Adderall and other prescription drugs at University of Wisconsin campuses. This story started as a project in a reporting class taught by Professor Deborah Blum.

• Second place, best public service or public education feature story: Kate Golden, for a three-part series on the for-profit Westwood College Online, sued by a student for operating without approval in Wisconsin. State regulators halted enrollment at the college partly in response to the story (since then, Westwood applied and has been approved to operate here).

• Second place, best business story or series: Kate Golden, for How a polluter gets stimulus money — and avoids environmental review. Golden collaborated with the Center for Public Integrity, which published her piece on Didion Ethanol Inc. and did a broader report on environmental violators that got stimulus money.

The Center, (www.WisconsinWatch.org) a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization, began operating in 2009. It collaborates with the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where it is housed; Wisconsin Public Radio; Wisconsin Public Television; and other news media.

All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.