Local, independent, fact-based reporting is essential to vibrant communities and a healthy democracy. We’re rebuilding and reimagining the future of local news across Wisconsin.
(Narayan Mahon for Wisconsin Watch / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
Our mission
Using journalism to make the communities of Wisconsin strong, informed and connected.
Our impact
Our work helps people navigate their lives, be seen and heard, hold power to account and come together in community and civic life.
Our values
Our work is guided by these core values:
We are committed to service, prioritizing the needs of the communities we serve through relevant, empowering and civic-minded journalism.
Integrity drives us to report with truth, fairness and transparency, earning and maintaining public trust.
Through collaboration, we partner with organizations, residents and media outlets to amplify diverse voices and deepen our impact.
We act with initiative, identifying emerging issues and responding creatively to changing community needs.
We invest in growth by fostering a culture of learning, open communication and innovation to sustain our mission for future generations.
Who we are
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit organization dedicated to using journalism to make the communities of Wisconsin strong, informed and connected. As a nonprofit investigative news organization, we expose injustices, listen to the everyday problems in our communities and shine a light on issues that too often go unnoticed. Every story we publish is rigorously fact-checked to ensure accuracy, fairness and impact.
We don’t just report the news — we connect communities. By collaborating with news organizations across Wisconsin and beyond, we expand the reach of our reporting, ensuring critical stories reach the people who need them most. Our multimedia investigations appear on WisconsinWatch.org and are republished by hundreds of outlets statewide.
Wisconsin Watch is home to multiple newsrooms and teams that work together to strengthen local journalism and amplify underrepresented voices:
Our statewide newsroom uncovers systemic issues affecting communities across Wisconsin, putting local challenges into broader context.
That newsroom’s statehouse bureau covers state and local government, ensuring our readers understand how the decisions made in the capital impact communities across Wisconsin.
Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS), an independent community-based newsroom in Milwaukee that delivers deeply rooted, community-driven reporting on issues that matter to Milwaukee’s central city and communities of color.
Our northeast Wisconsin bureau is built around community connection, accountability and public participation. Aside from publishing stories, it exists to build a conversation with the people who live and work in northeast Wisconsin.
By exposing the truth, we spark change that improves communities across Wisconsin.
How do you know you can trust our work?
It’s harder than ever to know which information to trust. The sheer volume of news, opinions and misinformation online can make it difficult to separate credible reporting from content that isn’t grounded in facts. We understand that skepticism, and we believe trust must be earned, not assumed.
At Wisconsin Watch, our reporting is built on a commitment to transparency, accuracy and the public interest. We’re part of a network of respected journalism organizations that hold us accountable to high standards:
We are a founding member of the Institute for Nonprofit News, a community of nonprofit newsrooms dedicated to investigative reporting that serves the public.
We participate in the Trust Project, a global initiative that developed transparency standards — called Trust Indicators — to help you evaluate the credibility of our work and understand how our journalism is produced.
Through the CatchLight Local Visual Desk, we collaborate with other newsrooms to strengthen visual storytelling and make high-quality journalism more accessible.
As a member of Gigafact, we publish Fact Briefs that quickly and clearly respond to widely shared claims, helping set the record straight.
These partnerships don’t replace your judgment; they’re one way we show our work and invite scrutiny. We encourage you to explore our methods, review our sources when available and hold us accountable. Trust in journalism starts with openness, and we’re committed to providing it.
The Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, a nonprofit group that works to protect access to public meetings and records, is now accepting nominations for its annual Openness in Government Awards, or Opees. Awards are given in six categories:
Popee (Political Openness Award): Recognizes extraordinary service to the cause of open government by an elected or appointed official, agency, or group of officials.
Mopee (Media Openness Award): Recognizes extraordinary service to the cause of open government by a media member or organization.
Copee (Citizen Openness Award): Recognizes extraordinary service to the cause of open government by a member of the public or public group.
Scoopee (Open Records Scoop of the Year): For a journalist or media organization who (which) has used public records to highlight an issue or expose wrongdoing.
Nopee (No Friend of Openness): For an individual or institution who (which) has disregarded or denigrated the state’s traditions of openness.
Whoopee (Whistleblower of the Year): Recognizes an individual who has come forward to help expose wrongdoing.
Please submit nominations with any supporting documentation by Friday, Feb. 15, to Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, at blueders@gmail.com.
Bill Lueders presented the Freedom of Information Council’s Openness in Government awards, or “Opees” during the awards banquet held on April 19, 2018.
The winners will be selected by a Council committee, as in past years. The Council reserves the right to issue special awards or to not give an award in a particular category.
The awards will be announced just prior to national Sunshine Week, March 10-16, and presented at the ninth annual Wisconsin Watchdog Awards Reception and Dinner in Madison on Tuesday, April 16. Tickets and sponsorships for the event will be available soon.
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.
Scroll down to copy and paste the code of our article into your CMS. The codes for images, graphics and other embeddable elements may not transfer exactly as they appear on our site.
*** Also, the code below will NOT copy the featured image on the page. You are welcome to download the main image as a separate element for publication with this story. ***
You are welcome to republish our articles for free using the following ground rules.
Credit should be given, in this format: “By Dee J. Hall, Wisconsin Watch”
Editing material is prohibited, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and in-house style (for example, using “Waunakee, Wis.” instead of “Waunakee” or changing “yesterday” to “last week”)
Other than minor cosmetic and font changes, you may not change the structural appearance or visual format of a story.
If published online, you must include the links and link to wisconsinwatch.org
If you share the story on social media, please mention @wisconsinwatch (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram), and ensure that the original featured image associated with the story is visible on the social media post.
Don’t sell the story or any part of it — it may not be marketed as a product.
Don’t extract, store or resell Wisconsin Watch content as a database.
Don’t sell ads against the story. But you can publish it with pre-sold ads.
Your website must include a prominent way to contact you.
Additional elements that are packaged with our story must be labeled.
Users can republish our photos, illustrations, graphics and multimedia elements ONLY with stories with which they originally appeared. You may not separate multimedia elements for standalone use.
If we send you a request to change or remove Wisconsin Watch content from your site, you must agree to do so immediately.
For questions regarding republishing rules please contact Jeff Bauer, digital editor and producer, at jbauer@wisconsinwatch.org
Nominations sought for 2019 Opee Awards recognizing efforts to support public access to meetings and records
by Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch January 25, 2019
