Dick Wheeler, the late founder of the Wheeler Report, has been named the 2012 recipient of the Distinguished Wisconsin Watchdog Award in recognition of his four decades of tirelessly opening Wisconsin state government to public scrutiny.

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.

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

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.

Are you the right person for this key job? Or perhaps you know someone who might be interested.

We want you to know who’s supporting the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. That’s why the Center’s Board of Directors recently voted on a fund-raising policy that formalizes a practice we have been following – disclosing all the names of all our donors.

The Challenge Fund for Journalism (CFJ), a consortium of the Ford, McCormick, and Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundations, announced the awards on Feb. 17.

The charitable arm of Madison’s The Capital Times gives us $5,000.

The Center gets its first major grant to report on government integrity and issues affecting the quality of life in Wisconsin.