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Today’s story — Bullets exacted terrible toll on children, African Americans — 
is the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism’s first report for Precious Lives, a newly launched two-year project investigating the problem of gun violence among young people, its causes, and potential solutions in the Milwaukee area and statewide.

Precious Lives is led by Milwaukee-based 371 Productions and will include weekly public radio reports (100 episodes, five to seven minutes each) and a community engagement campaign about gun violence.

Media partners WUWM (Milwaukee Public Radio) and WNOV (890 AM) will broadcast the story series and air related interviews on their stations. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will offer the stories as podcasts on its website, along with additional reporting. The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism will produce investigative reports focusing on state youth and gun violence issues.

More than 50 partners, including the Milwaukee Health Department and community groups such as Urban Underground, plan to use the stories as part of a community-wide effort to reduce gun violence among young people. Funding is provided by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and the Helen Bader Foundation. The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism’s coverage is supported by The Joyce Foundation.

Precious Lives aims to frame gun violence among young people, both homicide and suicide, as a public health problem. Stories will explore multiple perspectives, seeking to understand the victims and the shooters, learning about the weapons and their pathways to crime, and examining factors behind the tragedies.

The Center welcomes coverage suggestions. Please contact us at tips@wisconsinwatch.org or WCIJ, 5006 Vilas Communication Hall, 821 University Ave., Madison WI 53706.

The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. 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.

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

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Andy Hall / Wisconsin WatchExecutive Director

ahall@wisconsinwatch.org

Andy Hall, a co-founder of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and a former Investigative Reporters and Editors board member, won dozens of awards for his reporting in 26 years at the Wisconsin State Journal and The Arizona Republic. Since the Center’s launch in 2009, he has been responsible for the Center’s journalistic and financial operations.

Hall began his career in 1982 as a copyboy at The New York Times. At The Republic, Hall helped break the “Keating Five” scandal involving Sen. John McCain. At the State Journal, Hall’s stories held government and the powerful accountable and protected the vulnerable through coverage that addressed the racial achievement gap in public schools and helped spark the creation of the nationally noted Schools of Hope volunteer tutoring program, revealed NCAA violations by University of Wisconsin athletes, and exposed appalling conditions in neglected neighborhoods such as Allied Drive and Worthington Park. Hall won a first-place award in 2008 for beat reporting from the Education Writers Association. He also has received National Headliner, Gerald Loeb, James K. Batten and Inland Press Association awards for investigative, financial, deadline and civic journalism coverage. Hall has served as a mentor to the staff of La Comunidad, a Spanish-language newspaper in Madison, and has taught numerous courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication. He serves on the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council Board of Directors, Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism Board of Directors, and Indiana University Media School’s Journalism Alumni Board, of which he is president. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and, in 2016, received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the IU Media School. He also serves as a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News membership task force to create and uphold high industry standards.