Deyonna Kline, 18, a student at Operation Fresh Start in Madison, Wis., was an accidental voter. She “didn't know who to vote for,” and was not planning to cast a ballot in 2018 but happened to be at the library — her polling place — that day. She is seen at the Operation Fresh Start office on March 5, 2019. Credit: Emily Hamer / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
The nonpartisan, nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is increasing the quality and quantity of investigative reporting in Wisconsin, while training current and future investigative journalists. Its work fosters an informed citizenry and strengthens democracy.
The Center is a member of the Trust Project, a global network of news organizations that has developed transparency standards to help news readers assess the quality and credibility of journalism.
The Center is also a member The Global Investigative Journalism Network, an international network of nonprofit organizations founded to support, promote and produce investigative journalism.
The Center is also a founding member of the Institute for Nonprofit News, a group of nonprofit journalism organizations that conduct investigative reporting in the public interest.
Alexandra Hall, the Wisconsin Public Radio Mike Simonson Memorial Investigative Reporting Fellow, interviews Guillermo Ramos at dairy farm in northern Buffalo County, Wisconsin. Ramos, who is from Mexico, has worked there for 17 years.
Ethics Policy
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization that strives to uphold high standards of fairness and accuracy.
The Center’s ethics standards include the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, adopted in 1996 and endorsed by thousands of journalists around the world. That code is reprinted below, with permission. WCIJ’s Board of Directors have also adopted a conflict of interest policy and a diversity statement, which appear after the SPJ Code of Ethics.
Additional standards guiding the Center’s operations include:
The Center’s Policy on Financial Support, which requires that the Center’s news coverage be independent of donors and that all providers of revenue will be publicly identified.
Membership standards of the Institute for Nonprofit News (originally Investigative News Network), the nation’s first consortium of nonprofit investigative news organizations. The Center is a founding member of INN and the standards, developed with assistance of the Center’s leaders, require members to disclose information about donors and financial practices, produce nonpartisan investigative journalism, and apply high journalistic standards for accuracy and fairness.
Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics
Preamble
Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society’s principles and standards of practice.
Seek Truth and Report It
Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.
Journalists should:
Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.
Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing.
Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources’ reliability.
Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Clarify conditions attached to any promise made in exchange for information. Keep promises.
Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.
Never distort the content of news photos or video. Image enhancement for technical clarity is always permissible. Label montages and photo illustrations.
Avoid misleading re-enactments or staged news events. If re-enactment is necessary to tell a story, label it.
Avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional open methods will not yield information vital to the public. Use of such methods should be explained as part of the story.
Never plagiarize.
Tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience boldly, even when it is unpopular to do so.
Examine their own cultural values and avoid imposing those values on others.
Avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.
Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.
Give voice to the voiceless; official and unofficial sources of information can be equally valid.
Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.
Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.
Recognize a special obligation to ensure that the public’s business is conducted in the open and that government records are open to inspection.
Minimize Harm
Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect.
Journalists should:
Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.
Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone’s privacy.
Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.
Be cautious about identifying juvenile suspects or victims of sex crimes.
Be judicious about naming criminal suspects before the formal filing of charges.
Balance a criminal suspect’s fair trial rights with the public’s right to be informed.
Act Independently
Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know.
Journalists should:
Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; avoid bidding for news.
Be Accountable
Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.
Journalists should:
Clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct.
Encourage the public to voice grievances against the news media.
Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.
Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media.
Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.
More information about SPJ and its Code of Ethics is available at www.spj.org.
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism Conflict of Interest Policy
The following Financial Conflict of Interest Policy (“Conflict of Interest Policy”) is an effort (i) to ensure that the deliberations and decisions of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (“WCIJ”) are made solely in the interest of promoting the quality of journalism in the state of Wisconsin, and (ii) to protect the interests of WCIJ when it considers any transaction, contract, or arrangement that might benefit or be perceived to benefit the private interest of a person affiliated with WCIJ (each, a “WCIJ Representative”). As used in this Conflict of Interest Policy, a WCIJ Representative includes any director, advisory board member, financial advisor, legal counsel or employee.
Duty to WCIJ. Each WCIJ Representative owes a duty to WCIJ to advance WCIJ’s legitimate interests when the opportunity to do so arises. Each WCIJ Representative must give undivided allegiance when making decisions affecting the organization. Similarly, WCIJ Representatives must be faithful to WCIJ’s non-profit mission and are not permitted to act in a way that is inconsistent with the central goals of the organization and its non-profit status.
Gifts. No WCIJ Representative shall personally accept gifts or favors that could compromise his or her loyalty to WCIJ. Any gifts or benefits personally accepted from a party having a material interest in the outcome of WCIJ or its employees by a WCIJ Representative individually should be merely incidental to his or her role as a WCIJ Representative and should not be of substantial value. Any gift with a value of $250 or more, or any gifts with a cumulative value in excess of $250 received by a WCIJ Representative in any twelve-month period from a single source, shall be considered substantial. Cash payments may not be accepted, and no gifts should be accepted if there are strings attached. For example, no WCIJ Representative may accept gifts if he or she knows that such gifts are being given to solicit his or her support of or opposition to the outcome or content of any WCIJ publication.
Personal Loans. WCIJ may not loan to, or guarantee the personal obligations of any WCIJ Representative.
Conflicts of Interest. The following are examples of conflicts of interest which must be promptly disclosed to the WCIJ Board of Directors pursuant to Section 4 below by any WCIJ Representative with knowledge of such conflict of interest:
(a) any real or apparent conflict of interest between a donor or the subject of a WCIJ publication or report and a WCIJ Representative;
(b) a WCIJ Representative’s ownership of an equity interest in a person or entity that is or will be the subject of a WCIJ publication or report; and
(c) failure to disclose to WCIJ all relationships between the subject of any WCIJ publication or report and any WCIJ Representative or close relatives of the WCIJ Representative.
Conflict Procedure:
(a) If a WCIJ Representative or party related to a WCIJ Representative has an interest in any contract, action or transaction to be entered into with WCIJ, a conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest exists. Any WCIJ Representative having knowledge that such a conflict of interest exists or may exist (an “Interested WCIJ Representative”) will so advise the Board of Directors promptly. An Interested WCIJ Representative will include in the notice the material facts as to the relationship or interest of the Interested WCIJ Representative in the entity proposing to enter into a contract, action or transaction with WCIJ.
(b) Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary, the Board of Directors may authorize any committee appointed pursuant to the WCIJ by-laws (a “Committee”) to act in lieu of the Board of Directors in determining whether an action, contract or transaction is fair to WCIJ as of the time it is authorized or approved by the Committee.
(c) At any time that a conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest is identified, the Chair of the Board or a Chair of the applicable Committee will ensure that such conflict of interest is placed on the agenda for the next meeting of the Board of Directors or the Committee, as applicable. The notice of such meeting of the Board of Directors or the Committee, as applicable, will include, to the extent available when the notice is sent, a description of the conflict of interest matter to be discussed. By notice before the meeting or at the meeting, the directors on the board or the Committee, as applicable, will be advised that a vote will be taken at the meeting and that, in order to authorize the relevant contract, action or transaction, an affirmative vote of a majority of disinterested directors present at the meeting at which a quorum is present will be required and will be sufficient, even though the disinterested directors constitute less than a quorum of the Board of Directors or the Committee.
(d) Reasonable effort will be made to cause the material facts concerning the relationships between the individuals and WCIJ which create the conflict to be delivered to and shared with the members of the Board of Directors or the Committee, as applicable, prior to the meeting to enable the directors to arrive at the meeting prepared to discuss the issue. In the event it is not practicable to deliver the information prior to the meeting, it will be delivered to the directors at the meeting, and the directors can act upon the matter with the same authority as if notice had been given prior to the meeting.
(e) The Board of Directors or the Committee, as applicable, will invite all parties to the conflict of interest to attend the meeting, to make presentations and to be prepared to answer questions, if necessary. The Board or Directors or the Committee, as applicable, will also invite outside experts if necessary.
(f) At the meeting, providing a quorum is present, the conflict will be discussed to ensure that the directors present are aware of the issues and the factors involved. The interested directors may be counted for purposes of a quorum, even though they may not take part in any vote on the issues.
(g) The Board of Directors or the Committee, as applicable, must decide, in good faith, reasonably justified by the material facts, whether the action, contract or transaction would be in the best interest of WCIJ and fair to WCIJ as of the time it is authorized or approved.
(h) All interested directors must abstain from voting and, if necessary, leave the room when the vote is taken.
(i) The Board of Directors or the Committee, as applicable, will maintain a written account of all that transpires at the meeting and incorporate such account into the minutes of the meeting and disseminate it to the full Board of Directors. Such minutes will be presented for approval at the next meeting of the Board of Directors and maintained in the corporate record book.
(j) To the extent that the conflict of interest is continuing and the contract, action or transaction goes beyond one (1) year, the foregoing notice and discussion and vote will be repeated on an annual basis.
Diversity Statement
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism embraces diversity and inclusiveness in its journalism, training activities, hiring practices and workplace operations. The Center recognizes that its mission and society in general are strengthened by respecting individuals’ cultural traditions, beliefs and viewpoints. The Center further acknowledges that for its journalism, and our democracy, to attain their highest potential, a robust supply of reliable information about key issues must be accessible to all.
Inclusiveness is at the heart of thinking and acting as journalists. Our guiding principles: Protect the vulnerable. Expose wrongdoing. Explore solutions. The complex issues we face as a society require respect for different viewpoints. Race, class, generation, gender and geography all affect point of view. Reflecting these differences in our reporting leads to better, more-nuanced stories and a better-informed community.
Part of our commitment to diversity means being transparent about our own staff. Information about the composition of the Center’s workforce in past years may be found in its responses to the American Society of News Editors Newsroom Employment Diversity Survey from 2017 and 2018. ASNE, now the News Leaders Association, paused data collection in 2020 to redesign the survey.
The Center recognizes that Wisconsin law bars employers from discrimination on the basis of:
Age, Ancestry, Arrest Record, Color, Conviction Record, Creed, Disability, Genetic Testing, Honesty Testing, Marital Status, Military Service, National Origin, Pregnancy or Childbirth, Race, Sex, Sexual Orientation, Use or nonuse of lawful products off the employer’s premises during nonworking hours. Employees may not be harassed in the workplace based on their protected status nor retaliated against for filing a complaint, for assisting with a complaint, or for opposing discrimination in the workplace.
Approved Sept. 8, 2010, updated May 8, 2018, by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism Board of Directors
Our anti-racism stand and a pledge of action
On August 5, 2020, we published a statement representing the views of the entire Wisconsin Watch staff, including a pledge of action developed through weeks of discussion, research and reflection. The statement includes the following commitment.
We pledge to:
— Investigate and expose the histories and disparate impacts of systems on the lives of people of color.
— Explore solutions to problems not just through the perspectives of experts traditionally sought out by journalists, but also through the lived experiences of people who are finding ways to navigate existing societal systems.
— Embrace anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusiveness in all of our journalism, and in our own newsroom, including collaborative efforts, the framing of news coverage and selection of news sources, plus in our training activities, hiring and retention practices, and workplace operations.
— Listen to your story ideas and welcome your contributions to our opinion and letters to the editors pages as forums for all voices.
We’ve developed fact-checking protocols here at the Center. But when an error slips by us, the best thing we can do to keep our readers’ trust is own up to it.
Our policy is to correct stories promptly and openly. If we find an error, we will fix the story and note on the page what has been corrected.
As most news outlets do, we distinguish between corrections (for mistakes) and clarifications (for vague or misleading content).
If you think we’ve made a mistake in a story, tell us!
Ownership Structure, Funding
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization that is primarily funded through grants from foundations and donations from individuals and corporations. Additional revenue is obtained through sponsorships of its events and activities, and from earned income — payments for providing services such as fact-checking, collaborating with students or producing investigative journalism projects.
More than 850 individuals, foundations, news organizations and other groups have contributed financially to the Center since its launch in 2009.
As a matter of policy, funders exercise no control over the Center’s editorial decisions, and all funders are publicly identified.
The Oklahoma-based foundation continued to support the Center with grants of $100,000 in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015; $75,000 in 2016; $50,000 in 2017 and 2018.
In 2010, the Center received a two-year $75,000 matching grant from Challenge Fund for Journalism VI, a joint program of the Ford Foundation in New York, the McCormick Foundation in Illinois and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. The Center successfully completed a campaign to raise those matching funds in 2011.
The Foundation to Promote Open Society, which works in cooperation with the Open Society Foundations in New York City, awarded the Center general support totaling $50,000 in 2009, $100,000 in 2010 (to be spread over two years), $35,000 in 2011, $350,000 in 2012 (to be spread over two years), $350,000 in 2014 (over two years) and $200,000 in 2016.
In 2011, the Center announced a partnership with MAPLight.org to investigate the influence of money in Wisconsin state politics and policymaking. The project was supported by the Open Society Institute. The Center received about $25,000 for this project in 2011 and a similar amount in the first half of 2012.
In 2013, The Joyce Foundation became a major supporter of the Center. The Chicago-based foundation awarded a $100,000 grant that was split by the Center and MinnPost, a nonprofit news organization, to support in-depth coverage of key issues in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The grant funded coverage of political reform, environmental protection and gun violence issues in Wisconsin, as well as political reform in Minnesota. In 2014, Joyce awarded the Center $50,000 to support coverage of democracy, the environment and gun violence prevention. That was followed by a two-year grant in 2016, awarding $50,000 annually to support coverage of democracy, the environment and gun violence prevention. In 2018, The Joyce Foundation awarded the Center a two-year grant of $100,000 a year. In 2020, the foundation awarded the Center a two-year general support grant of $150,000 a year.
The Evjue Foundation, the charitable arm of The Capital Times in Madison, is a major supporter of the Center. The foundation made contributions to WCIJ in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, and in 2013, significantly increased its support to $20,000 — the largest single contribution received from a Wisconsin donor. Evjue repeated its $20,000 support in 2014 and 2015, and increased its giving to $30,000 in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. It contributed $10,000 in 2020.
At the end of 2017, the Center was awarded $28,000 from NewsMatch, now funded by an expanded number of donors, for meeting the program’s fundraising goals, and in 2018, the Center was awarded $27,000 from NewsMatch. The Center successfully attained its 2019 NewsMatch goal and also was selected to receive an additional $10,000 from REI Co-op.
In 2015, the Vital Projects Fund, based in New York City, became a major supporter, contributing $25,000 to support the Center’s coverage of criminal justice issues. It provided $20,000 in 2016, $15,000 in 2017 and $20,000 in 2019.
The Reva & David Logan Foundation, based in Chicago, became a major supporter of the Center in 2017 with a general support grant of $100,000. The foundation awarded the Center $125,000 grants in 2018 and 2019. In 2020, the foundation awarded the Center a three-year grant of $150,000 a year.
The Center also is grateful for support it received from the Peters Family Foundation in Utah in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019; the Wisconsin State Journal in 2009, 2012, 2013 and 2014; and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association and its related foundation, which provided $10,000 in 2014 and 2015, $14,000 in 2016, $20,000 in 2017, and $5,000 in 2019 and 2020.
In 2016, the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication received a grant from the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment to establish a class in fact-checking and to create The Observatory website to publish fact-checked reports and information about fact-checking. The Center, in turn, received a contract of $15,000 in the first year and $10,000 in the second to develop and launch the website and assist in fact-checking, editing and distribution of content. The Center is training students and raising the supply of high-quality verified journalism.
In 2017, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication received a three-year grant totaling $120,000 from the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment to collaborate with the Center on production of investigative reports by students that are published on the Center’s website and distributed to media partners across the state and nation. The Center was paid through a contract.
In 2019, Houston philanthropists Laura and John Arnold, founders of Arnold Ventures, became major supporters of the Center, with a $100,000 gift of general operating support. They also provided a gift of $100,000 in 2020.
In 2019, the Lau and Bea Christensen Charitable Foundation donated $10,000 to support the Center.
In 2019, Mary and Ken Rouse donated $50,000 to the Center from the estate of their friend, Roger “Whitey” Bruesewitz.
In 2019, Susan Troller Cosgrove and her husband, Howard Cosgrove, established a fund in memory of her mother, Dorothy Mae Johnson Troller, a 1949 UW-Madison journalism graduate, to support the work of journalism students at the Center. They are contributing $10,000 a year in the first phase of the fund.
In 2019, the Wm. Collins Kohler Foundation awarded the Center a gift of $35,000 a year for three years to support fact-checking and other efforts to strengthen the integrity of journalism.
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman became a major supporter of the Center in 2019 with a $100,000 gift of general operating support.
Members of the Center’s Board of Directors, who serve as volunteers, are financial supporters of the organization.
The Center has received revenue for producing reports and conducting interviews through arrangements with the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.; WBEZ Public Media in Chicago; American University’s J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism; Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting; Sarah Colt Productions in New York City; HuffPost; and NPR.
In 2017, the Center launched the Watchdog Club to enrich members’ experience with investigative journalism, and to involve these loyal members in efforts to transform the Center into a larger, more financially resilient organization. These members donate $1,000 or more a year per household.
In 2019, the Center created the Leadership Circle, a group of Watchdog Club members taking a leadership role in sustaining investigative reporting and the training of investigative journalists. These members donated $5,000 or more in 2019:
Laura and John Arnold Mary Burke Lau and Bea Christensen Charitable Foundation Susan Troller Cosgrove and Howard Cosgrove Evjue Foundation Wendy Fearnside and Bruce Meier Andy and Dee J. Hall Larry Hands and Karen Kendrick-Hands Phil and Tricia Hands Sally Mead Hands Foundation Reid Hoffman Barbara Johnson Wm. Collins Kohler Foundation Reva and David Logan Foundation David and Marion Meissner Peters Family Foundation Mary and Ken Rouse
In 2019 and 2020, the Center received subsidies (50% in year one, 33% in year two) to support the salary of a Report for America journalist who is producing an investigative podcast on police and prosecutorial misconduct in Wisconsin.
In 2019 and 2020, the Center received a total of $234,000 from the Google News Initiative to support the launch of News414, a collaborative project of the Center, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Outlier Media. News414 engages residents of underserved Milwaukee neighborhoods, responds to information requests via text message, investigates residents’ most pressing needs and delivers accountability journalism.
In 2019 and 2020, the Center received $100,000 grants from the Facebook Membership Accelerator, to support its development of a membership program and improvements to its digital infrastructure. The Lenfest Institute collaborated in the grantmaking.
In 2020, the Center received $8,500 from the Walton Family Foundation for its role in a collaborative reporting project on rural education during the pandemic. Six other newsrooms participated in the project, with assistance from the Institute for Nonprofit News.
In 2020, the Center received a $93,581 forgivable loan under the federal Paycheck Protection Program to support its operations through the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic.
In 2020, the Center received $20,000 from First Draft to support the work of Howard Hardee, one of First Draft’s fellows reporting on misinformation and disinformation in the 2020 election.
In 2020, Craig Newmark Philanthropies provided a $70,000 grant to the Center for its role in the Election Integrity Project to safeguard the voices of voters. The Center collaborated with the UW-Madison Center for Journalism Ethics, which also received grant money, to produce tools for the public and journalists to discern what’s credible, and what’s not.
In 2020, ProPublica’s Electionland project provided a 25% subsidy of a Center reporter’s salary to support coverage of voting issues.
In 2020, the Center received $51,000 from Votebeat, a nonprofit newsroom covering local election administration and voting in eight states, created by Chalkbeat. The Center works with two reporters and an editor on stories focusing on Wisconsin elections and voting.
Our financial supporters
(Updated November 2020)
A to Z Produce and Bakery
Lisa Aarli and Gail Owens
Helen Aarli
Abbotsford Tribune Phonograph
Linda and James Adams
Jason Alcorn
Amazon Smile
Judy Amery-Ryland
Diane Ames
Noel Anderson
Elizabeth Andre
Margaret Andrietsch
Mary Anglim
Lynn and Dr. Tom Ansfield
Charles Anstett
David Antonioni
Susan Applegate
Appleton Post-Crescent Community Fund
Claudia Apuzzo
Laura and John Arnold
Michael Arnold
Joan Arnold
Alexandra Arriaga
Alicia Artus
Jeff Ash
Russell Attoe
Jan Axelson
Elizabeth Backes
Adam Balin and Karin Mahony
Bunny Balk
Ellen Balthazor
Robbi Bannen
Daniel Barr
Jeffrey Bartelll
Eileen Bartos
Bastian Family Foundation
Frank W. Bastian
Janet Battista
Chuck Bauer and Charles Beckwith
Mary Kay Baum
Herman Baumann and Kay Schwichtenberg
Keith and Juli Baumgartner
Eileen Beamish
Sheridan Bearheart
Steven Beatty
Beaver Dam Daily Citizen
Joseph and Josefina Beck
Barbara Beck
Madeleine Behr
Ann Behrmann
Barbara Bend
Daniel Bennett
Tracy Benton
Jacob Berchem
Laura Berger
Eyoel Berhane
Bill Berry
Stephen Berry
Paul Bickford
Tom and Katherine Bier
Kathy Bissen
Lynn Bjorkman
Kayla Blado
Bev Blietz
Karen Blofeld
Blue Valley Farms
Matthew Boben
Walt Bogdanich
Teri Boggess
Rod Bohn
Jane Boland
Peter Bonnes
Eric Booth
Alan Borsuk
Deanna Bowden
Nicholas Boyle
Maureen Brady
Nancy Bralick
Daniel Brand
Sirianna Brand
Kathleen Brazaitis
Elizabeth Brenner and Steve Ostrofsky
Malcolm and Penny Brett
Elizabeth Brixey
Dylan Brogan
Aimee and Karl Broman
Craig Brooks
Sandra Kay and James Brooks
Wesley Brooks
Suzanne Brooks
Sue Brouillette
Martha Brown
Joanne Brown
Kelly Bryant
Roger Buffett
Roland Buhler
Brian and Margaret Bull
Jay Bullock
Tucker Burch
Jim and Catherine Burgess
Elaine Burke
Mary Burke
Jane Burns
Brad Burrill
Jay Burseth
Paul Burton
Helen Bush
Michael Cain
John Calabrese
Stephen Caldwell
Linda and Edward Calhan
Tom and Patti Cameron
Peter Cameron
Marsha and Peter Cannon
Capital Times
Denis Carey and Carol Koby Carey
Duncan Carlsmith Carlsmith
Dick and Kim Cates
Julia Cechvala
Louisa Cenatiempo
Janice Chernik
Robert Christofferson
Joel Christopher
Dave Cieslewicz
Catherine Cleary
Pamela Clinkenbeard
Ned Cochrane and Bonnie Cox
Marcus and Sheila Cohen
Sarah Cohen
Scott Cohn
Rebecca Cole
Joanne and Jim Collins
Comfypac
Sara Companik
Daniel Conley
Tim Conroy
Linda Cooke
Bill Cooney
Marcy Cox
Craig Newmark Philanthropies
Mike Crane
David Crawford
Robert Crawford
Julie Crego
Dorothy Crenshaw
Sue Cross
Kathleen Culver
Nora Cusack and Brent Nicastro
Betty and Corkey Custer
Annette Czarnecki
Debra Dahlke
John Daigle
Tim Damos
James Danky and Christine Schelshorn
Susan Davenport
Judith Davidoff
Brian A. Davis and Deborah M. Umstead
Thulani Davis
Dead Bird Brewing Co.
Jason Dean
Dorothy Dean
Catherine Decker
Brenda DeJong
Carroll Delaney
Ann Delwiche
Martha Deming
Democracy Fund
Pam Dempsey
Ann Dencker
Jerry Depew
Matt DeRienzo
Claire and Chris DeRosa
Glenn Deutsch
Fernando Diaz
Mary Dibble
Robert Dohnal
Linda Donnelly
Richard Doxtator
Betsy Draine
Robert and Lynn Drechsel
Robert Dreps and Elizabeth Koehl
Joel Dresang
William and Gretchen Dresen
Kathleen Drew
Robert Dreyfus
Thomas and Andy Dukehart
Coburn Dukehart
Caroline Dunham
Bill Dunn
Sharon Dunwoody and Stephen Glass
Claire Duquette
John Durbrow
Kristen Durst
Margarita Dusek
Krista Eastman
Kaye Eckert
Karen and Anthony Eclavea
Jennifer and John Edmondson
Jane Edson
Richard Eggleston
Lynne and Bill Eich
Joe Eisele
El Grito Taqueria
Loren Elkin
Eric Englund
Marlene Enright
James Erickson
Dale Erlandson
Kathleen Esqueda
Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation
Mark and Sara Eversden
Evjue Foundation
John Eyster
Facebook Journalism Project
Facebook Membership Accelerator
Kristeen and Todd Fansler
Michael and Gloria Fauerbach
Robert and Marianne Fazen
Wendy Fearnside and Bruce Meier
Fredrika Feeny
Gary Feider
Margaret Fennig
Paul and Sarah Ferguson
William Field
Vincent Filak
First Draft
Beth Flaherty
Michael Flaherty
Dan Flannery
Anita Flantz
Dorothy Ann Flood-Smith
Kelvin Fodolfo
Ford Foundation
Susan Fowler
Philip Fransen
Georgette Frazer
David Freedman and Harriet Kohn
Kathy Freise
Caroline Fribance
Lewis Friedland and Stacey Oliker
Lauren and Eric Fuhrmann
Fund for Environmental Journalism
Fund for Investigative Journalism
Dennis Gaffney
Susan Gagainis
Bridget Gallagher
Peter Gascoyne and Claudia English
Sharon and Warren Gaskill
Frank S. Gattolin
Robert Gebeloff
Janet and Derrick Gee
Aviva Gellman
Cindy Gengler
Maureen A Gerarden
Christia Gibbons
Scott Gierman
Mark Giese
Dan Gillmor
Rebecca Gilsdorf
Geri Girard
Neil and Cindy Gleason
Christopher and Erin Glueck
Robert Godfrey
Richard Goldberg and Lisa Munro
Marian Goldeen
Kathleen Golden
Dorothy Golush
Dr. Lawrence and Hannah Goodman
Lee Goodwin
Google News Initiative
Linda Gorens-Levey and Michael Levey
Teresa Gorman
Stephanie Govin-Matzat
Kevin Grasse
Lucas Graves
James Grayson
Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Nickel Fund
Jessica and Brad Green
Gareth Green
Mary Green
Dianne Greenley
Peter and Barbara Grenier
Elizabeth Griffith
Gretchen Griffith
Matt Griffith
Angela Guzman
Timothy Haering
Megan Hagenauer and John Basler
George and Mary Ellen Hagenauer
Robert and Elke Hagge
Steven Hahn
Paula Hahn
Joseph Hall and Judy Thomas-Hall
Andrew and Dee J. Hall
David Hall
Dan Hall
John Hall
Monica Hall
Henry and Mary Ann Halsted
Marilyn Hamilton
Patricia Hammel
Jane Hampden
John Lawrence Hands and Karen Kendrick-Hands
Phil and Tricia Hands
Susan Hansen
Mariann Hansen
Gerald Hanson
Alice Hanson
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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.
Dee J. Hall, a co-founder of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, joined the staff as managing editor in June 2015. She is responsible for the Center’s daily news operations. She worked at the Wisconsin State Journal for 24 years as an editor and reporter focusing on projects and investigations. A 1982 graduate of Indiana University’s journalism school, Hall served reporting internships at the weekly Lake County Star in Crown Point, Ind., The Gary (Ind.) Post-Tribune, The Louisville (Ky.) Times and The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. Prior to returning to her hometown of Madison in 1990, she was a reporter for eight years at The Arizona Republic newspaper in Phoenix, where she covered city government, schools and the environment. During her 35-year journalism career, Hall has won more than three dozen local, state and national awards for her work, including the 2001 State Journal investigation that uncovered a $4 million-a-year secret campaign machine operated by Wisconsin’s top legislative leaders.
Lauren Fuhrmann joined the Center in 2011 after receiving her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. At the Center, Fuhrmann leads revenue development efforts as well as public engagement initiatives, including events, social media, newsletter and promotional materials; tracks the distribution and assesses the impact of WCIJ’s news stories; assists with development of donors and writing of grant reports; handles bookkeeping duties; produces photos, audio and video content; and copyedits stories. A Wisconsin native, her reporting focused on environmental and health issues. Fuhrmann previously researched audience engagement as a social media intern for Harvest Public Media and spent two years as a multimedia reporter for KBIA 91.3 FM and the Columbia Missourian. Fuhrmann is vice president and treasurer of the Madison Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. She was among five young leaders in the inaugural group of “Future Headliners” honored in 2014 by the Wisconsin Newspaper Association and a member of the inaugural Emerging Leaders Council recognized by the Institute for Nonprofit News. In 2017, Fuhrmann became a Certified Nonprofit Accounting Professional.
Jay Burseth joined the Center in April 2020 as the Development Director. His role includes setting the organization’s vision for fundraising growth; building and executing a development plan; working directly with donors and other supporters to further the Center’s mission; managing grant proposals and reports; and leading the development team and interns to meet fundraising goals. Prior to joining the Center, Burseth led fundraising for the Milwaukee County Parks and was the Development Director for the Milwaukee-based public radio music station, WMSE 91.7. Burseth holds a Master’s in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from UW-Milwaukee, where he focused on fundraising and marketing in public media, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and History, also from UWM.
Coburn Dukehart joined the Center in 2016 as digital and multimedia director. Her role includes directing the Center’s visual strategy, creating visual and audio content, managing digital assets and training student and professional journalists. Dukehart previously was a senior photo editor at National Geographic, the picture and multimedia editor at NPR, a photo editor at USATODAY.com and washingtonpost.com, interned in the White House photo department, and worked for a London-based publishing group. She has received awards from the National Press Photographers Association, Pictures of the Year International and the White House News Photographers Association. Her multimedia and photography work has been honored with a Webby, a Gracie, a Murrow, a duPont, and Milwaukee Press Club awards, and she was nominated for a national Emmy. Dukehart received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a master’s degree in photojournalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Jim Malewitz joined the Center in 2019 as investigations editor. His role includes editing, managing fellows and interns, facilitating cross-newsroom collaborations and investigative reporting. Malewitz has worked almost exclusively in nonprofit, public affairs journalism. He most recently reported on the environment for Bridge Magazine in his home state of Michigan, following four years as an energy and investigative reporter for the Texas Tribune. Malewitz previously covered energy and the environment for Stateline, a nonprofit news service in Washington, D.C. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, POLITICO Magazine and newspapers across the country. Malewitz majored in political science at Grinnell College in Iowa and holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Iowa. There, he was a founding staff member of the nonprofit Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism, where he serves on the board of directors.
Emily Neinfeldt joined the Center in September 2017 after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in journalism and political science. She started as a public engagement and marketing intern before becoming membership manager in 2019 and membership director in 2021. Her role includes maintaining and improving the digital infrastructure and operations developed under the Facebook Local News Membership Accelerator program and recommending and leading implementation of audience-growth efforts including marketing initiatives. Before working at the Center, she was a news intern at Wispolitics.com. She has also worked as associate news editor, features editor and managing editor at The Badger Herald, an independent student newspaper. Neinfeldt is secretary of the Madison Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Bram Sable-Smith, WPR Mike Simonson Memorial Investigative Reporting Fellow
Bram Sable-Smith joined the Center in 2019 as the Wisconsin Public Radio Mike Simonson Memorial Investigative Reporting Fellow. Before moving to Wisconsin he spent five years reporting on health care at KBIA in Columbia, Missouri and as a founding reporter of Side Effects Public Media, a public media reporting collaborative in the Midwest. He also taught radio journalism at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Sable-Smith’s contributed stories to National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered, American Public Media’s Marketplace and Kaiser Health News. His reporting has received two national Edward R. Murrow awards, two national Sigma Delta Chi awards, a health policy award from the Association of Health Care Journalists among others. Sable-Smith is a proficient Spanish speaker and a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis.
Phoebe Petrovic joined Wisconsin Watch in 2019 as a Report for America corps member. She is leading creation of an investigative podcast examining police and prosecutorial misconduct in Wisconsin. She formerly served as a general assignment reporter at Wisconsin Public Radio through the Lee Ester News Fellowship and, prior to that, was an editorial radio intern at “Reveal” from the Center for Investigative Reporting. She also worked as a producer for NPR’s “Here & Now” and a reporter for WCPN ideastream, Northeast Ohio’s NPR member station. Petrovic earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from Yale University, where she founded and led audio projects including Herald Audio, the first-ever audio section of an undergraduate publication, and “Small-Great Objects,” the first-ever podcast series installed at Yale University Art Gallery.
Vanessa Swales joined the Center as an investigative reporter in 2020. Swales is a multilingual British-American-Iranian reporter who has worked in London, New York, San Francisco and Málaga, Spain. She most recently completed a reporting fellowship at the New York Times. Swales is a graduate of the Spanish-language journalism program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where she specialized in investigative and data journalism. She previously worked for NBC Investigations, Reveal, Diario SUR and SUR in English. She speaks fluent Spanish, and intermediate French, and basic Italian and Farsi.
Howard Hardee is the election integrity reporter at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and a local fellow with the international journalism nonprofit First Draft News. He most recently was a reporter at the Wisconsin State Journal. He has written extensively about government, natural disasters and forest health in Northern California, and was a 2017 Environmental Reportage fellow at the Centre for Arts and Creativity in Banff, Alberta.
Sharon McGowan joined the Center in October 2020 as the editor for Wisconsin Watch’s Votebeat project — a pop-up nonprofit newsroom covering local election administration and voting in six states, created by Chalkbeat. She also works part-time as the Amplify Collaborations Leader at the Institute for Nonprofit News. McGowan was the founding editor of Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, an award-winning nonprofit news organization that has covered low-income, minority communities in Milwaukee’s central city since 2011. McGowan started her career as a reporter and then managing editor at The Chicago Reporter, which covers race and poverty. McGowan was assistant news director/managing editor at WBBM-AM Radio and later became Assignment Manager at WBBM-TV, both in Chicago.She was an adjunct faculty member in journalism at Northwestern University for more than 20 years and was most recently on the journalism faculty at the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University.McGowan earned her bachelor’s degree at Washington University in St. Louis and her master’s degree at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Nora Eckert joined the Center in October 2020 as a reporter for Wisconsin Watch’s Votebeat project — a pop-up nonprofit newsroom covering local election administration and voting in six states, created by Chalkbeat. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and undergraduate degree from St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wis. She previously worked with NPR, The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal. She’s reported on national investigations into jail suicides, how climate change disproportionately affects the urban poor, the spread of coronavirus in nursing homes and the race for artificial blood. While reporting in Washington, she covered the impeachment hearings of President Donald Trump and funeral of Rep. Elijah Cummings. Before diving into the journalism world, she worked as a marketing and communications specialist at a Minnesota biotech company.
Anya van Wagtendonk joined the Center in 2020 as a reporter with Wisconsin Watch’s Votebeat collaboration — a pop-up nonprofit newsroom covering local election administration and voting in six states, created by Chalkbeat. Most recently, she covered local business and government in west Michigan at the Muskegon Chronicle and MLive. She is a former politics reporter and producer at the PBS NewsHour and regular politics and policy contributor at Vox.com, and has also worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer. A proud graduate of the the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where she specialized in political reporting and documentary filmmaking, her freelance work has appeared in POLITICO Magazine, the Washington Post, Village Voice and elsewhere, and has been supported with grants from the Solutions Journalism Network, the New York National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and ACES: The Society for Editing.
Allison Dikanovic joined the Center as an engagement reporting fellow working on News414, a collaboration between Wisconsin Watch, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Outlier media, in May 2020. Her role includes reporting building off of questions texted in to News414, and finding new ways to fill information gaps and involve community members in the reporting process. Dikanovic is pursuing a master’s in social journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Prior to the Center, she served as an engagement fellow at THE CITY, a nonprofit newsroom covering New York City, where she worked on projects to make local news more collaborative. A Wisconsin native with so much love for Milwaukee, Dikanovic previously reported for Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. Her work has been published by the Associated Press, THE CITY, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Urban Milwaukee and On Milwaukee, and has been awarded a grant from the Solutions Journalism Network and a regional Murrow Award. During her favorite summer, she worked with students to create Youth Rise MKE, a youth-led digital magazine project. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international affairs and journalism from Marquette University.
Matt Whitney joined the Center in 2019 as a public engagement and marketing intern. He was promoted to engagement manager in 2020. He received UW-Madison bachelor’s degrees in Journalism and Environmental Studies. He has interned in various marketing and communications roles at the Nature Conservancy, Filene Research Institute, and for State Representative Katrina Shankland. He gained journalistic experience from the Daily Cardinal, a UW-Madison student newspaper, and from volunteering at Simpson Street Free Press. Whitney is very excited to further develop his passions for marketing, engagement, digital media, and nonprofit work at Wisconsin Watch.
Bevin Christie joined News414, a collaboration between Wisconsin Watch, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Outlier Media, in August 2020. Christie is a social entrepreneur and community organizer, with a background in education reform and workforce development. Throughout her career, Christie has partnered with a variety of industries, public/private schools, community based organizations, and the Milwaukee community to build upon a belief that a culture healing, equity, and inclusion is key to Milwaukee being a better place to thrive not just survive. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Zeidler Group for Public Discussion, is a board member and on planning committees for Youth Frontiers Ethical Leadership Luncheon, Latino and Black Male Achievement Summit, Alverno Summit for Women and Girls, City of Milwaukee’s Black Male Achievement Council Education/Workforce Development Committee, and Milwaukee’s Boys and Men of Color Week. She also serves as a program committee member for Employee Milwaukee’s Board of Directors, and Milwaukee County’s Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) Learning Community.
Claire DeRosa graduated from UW-Madison with a degree in journalism and political science in 2020. As graphic designer, she is responsible for creating project series graphics, logos, ads, page layouts and social media content for the Center. DeRosa serves as lead designer for Wisconsin Watch’s collaborative text-based service journalism project with Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Outlier Media, News 414. She also serves as lead designer for the Center’s collaborative Election Integrity project with the Center for Journalism Ethics and First Draft covering disinformation in the 2020 presidential election. DeRosa studied 3D animation at the School of Motion during quarantine learning how to model, light, color and animate in Cinema 4D. Claire enjoys deejaying and producing electronic music in her free time.
Enjoyiana Nururdin, production assistant, investigative podcast
Enjoyiana Nururdin joined the Center in October 2019 as a reporting intern. She was promoted in March 2020 to the position of production assistant on the Center’s investigative podcast, which is examining police and prosecutorial misconduct in Wisconsin. Nururdin began her journalism career in middle school, working for the nonprofit Simpson Street Free Press. She currently is a junior studying Reporting and Strategic Communication and Political Economy, Philosophy and Politics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has interned for the Cap Times, WORT Radio and The Weekend Today Show at NBC in New York City.
Will Cioci joined Wisconsin Watch in 2020 as a multimedia journalism intern. He is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, pursuing a degree in Journalism, Environmental Studies, and Political Science. He has interned for state and local government in the past and works as a photographer and occasional reporter for the Daily Cardinal student newspaper at UW-Madison.
Clara Neupert joined the Center as a News414 intern in June 2020. Previously, Clara was the Ann Devroy fellow at The Washington Post and the Sally Webb Journalism intern at Wisconsin Public Radio. Clara holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from UW-Eau Claire, where they reported for the student newspaper and student radio station.
Barbara Johnson joined the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism in 2016. A volunteer at the Center, Johnson draws upon her professional experience and contacts to strengthen the Center’s operations, with a special focus on the development of the Center’s business model. She was CEO and COO of four media companies in New York and Madison before her retirement in 2015. Johnson was a reporter and editor for 15 years before moving into business roles, winning national and state awards for her investigative stories. She has served on the boards of public and private companies and as an operating partner of a private equity firm. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan.
Christopher Glueck joined the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism in 2015, shortly after retiring from his position as a senior director of development at the University of Wisconsin Foundation. In his 12 years there, Glueck worked with alumni and friends of UW-Madison, primarily on behalf of the College of Letters & Science. Glueck had a broad focus, traveling throughout the nation and succeeding in helping a significant number of people realize their interests in supporting the university in a variety of ways, ranging from annual gifts to scholarships to chairs and professorships. Prior to that, Glueck spent 30 years in the high-tech field working in sales, product management, marketing and management positions, primarily with Wang Laboratories, Inc. and NCR Corporation. He earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from UW-Madison and a master’s in business administration from Rivier College (now Rivier University) in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Gail Kohl came to the Center in 2010 with more than 30 years of fundraising experience for both statewide and local organizations, including American Players Theatre, Taliesin Preservation Commission, Frank Lloyd Wright Heritage Tourism Program, United Cerebral Palsy, Seth Peterson Cottage Conservancy and Big Top Chautauqua. From 1993 until 2010, Kohl was development director of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. Over her career, Kohl has been responsible for major gifts, project and operations funding, membership development and enhancement, strategic partnerships and alliances, event planning and coordination, special projects, proposal and grant writing.
Christa Westerberg is an attorney at Pines Bach LLP in Madison, Wisconsin, where she practices environmental, civil rights, and open government law. Since 2008, Westerberg has served as the vice president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.
Mission Statement with Coverage Priorities
Clockwise from left, Dee J. Hall interviews Alan Schultz during a rally against long-term solitary confinement; Alexandra Hall interviews a Mexican worker on the Rosenholm farm in Cochrane, Wisconsin; Coburn Dukehart takes a self-portrait while on assignment; and Alexandra Arriaga interviews the family of Cesar DeLeon, a Wisconsin inmate who is being held in long-term solitary confinement.
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is a nonprofit and nonpartisan center based in Madison, Wis.
We publish our news stories on our website WisconsinWatch.org and distribute them statewide through our own distribution system and nationally through a partnership with the Associated Press.
Our mission:
To increase the quality, quantity and understanding of investigative journalism to foster an informed citizenry and strengthen democracy.
Our values:
The Center values truth and pursues it through accurate, fair, independent, rigorous and nonpartisan reporting. We also value transparency, collaboration, innovation and a spirit of public service. These values guide the Center’s training of journalists and its investigations, which seek to protect the interests of people in vulnerable circumstances, expose wrongdoing and deficiencies in systems, and explore solutions to problems.
Our guiding principles:
Protect the vulnerable. Expose wrongdoing. Explore solutions.
How we work
To fulfill its mission, the Center combines innovative technology with time-tested journalistic techniques to increase the transparency of official actions, intensify the search for solutions to governmental and societal problems, strengthen democracy and raise the quality of investigative journalism.
The Center works by:
Producing investigative reports independently and in partnership with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, and other for-profit and nonprofit news organizations including members of the Institute for Nonprofit News.
Educating and training high school and college students and working journalists in investigative reporting techniques, including through guest lecturing and teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Offering paid reporting and public engagement and marketing internships to UW-Madison students, who work in a professional capacity for the Center.
Partnering with Wisconsin Public Radio on their Mike Simonson Memorial Investigative Reporting Fellowship to train an early career radio reporter in investigative reporting techniques.
Hosting fellows from other journalism programs, including the Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program and The Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia University.
Helping commercial news outlets, including ethnic media, pursue their own investigations or produce joint projects.
Publishing and distributing investigative reports and offering a forum for sharing investigative findings, story tips and moderated discussions.
Our structure
The Center is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization operated by a professional staff under the guidance of a nationally noted board of directors. The Center collaborates with, but is independent of, the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication, where it is housed; Wisconsin Public Radio; and Wisconsin Public Television — and with mainstream and ethnic news media across the nation. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the University of Wisconsin-Madison or any of its affiliates.
The Center is a founding member of the Institute for Nonprofit News, formerly the Investigative News Network, the first network of nonprofit journalism organizations that conduct investigative reporting in the public interest.
Our focus is on government integrity and quality of life issues. Since its launch in January 2009, the award-winning Center has distributed more than 350 major reports, exploring such issues as: the growing reliance on immigrants by the state’s dairy industry — published in both Spanish and English; the rising numbers of low-income students in Wisconsin schools; the role of DNA testing in proving the innocence of a dozen Wisconsin prisoners; Wisconsin’s troubling increases in suicides; the underreporting of sexual assaults on Wisconsin campuses; the flaws in Wisconsin’s GPS monitoring program; dwindling protections and incentives for whistleblowers; and the state of Wisconsin’s democracy.
Our reach
Many of the Center’s reports are produced in collaboration with other news organizations in Wisconsin and nationwide. The reports have been cited, published or broadcast by more more than 800 news organizations including Wisconsin Public Radio, The New York Times, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, HuffPost, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin State Journal, The Capital Times, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Oshkosh Northwestern, La Crosse Tribune, Eau Claire Leader Telegram, The Country Today, WBAY-ABC in Green Bay, Hudson Star-Observer, Janesville Gazette, La Comunidad and WisPolitics.com. The Center’s reports have reached an estimated audience of more than 73 million.
Read about the way our work is having an impact, and testimonials from our partners, supporters and former interns.
Fact-checking Standards
At the nonprofit and nonpartisan Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, accuracy is something we think about all the time. An integral step in our process happens after a reporter finishes a story but before the story reaches our readers’ eyes: fact-checking.
Every report we produce goes through a rigorous review. Managing Editor Dee J. Hall, or another fact-checker, typically spends between eight and 12 hours with the reporter verifying each and every word. Tack on the time it takes to vet multimedia elements, and we spend at least two full days scrutinizing each major package we distribute.
We believe it is time well spent.
“We’re in the information and fact business,” Hall said. “It is up to individual news editors to choose to run our stories, and they have to be able to trust us.”
Because even a minor fact error like a misspelled name could undermine the Center’s credibility, we take every measure we can to report with accuracy.
Former WCIJ reporter Bill Lueders stands next to four years’ worth of fact-checking materials from the weekly column he wrote. Credit: Sean Kirkby / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
For each individual fact — a name or age, a report’s title, a summary of events, a quote or even an impression — the reporter must produce evidence of it from a reliable source. On a printed copy of the story, the fact-checker numbers the fact, while the reporter shows and marks its supporting evidence, which is also printed.
It is a version of a system graciously shared in 2009 by our colleagues at the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity — one we adopted to improve the accuracy of our journalism after two of our earliest reports contained mistakes.
Every fact-check reveals the need for additional editing to enhance clarity. Hall and the reporter also consider whether a story covers a topic fully and fairly.
“There are times during the fact-checking process where you identify gaps in the reporting,” Hall said. “Let’s say a fact you thought was correct is actually off, what else does that mean?”
It is not unusual for a reporter to be sent to do additional reporting after the first review.
In the end, every story has a thick paper file of fact-checking materials which can be easily referenced and reviewed.
Future journalists trained in fact-checking
In addition to producing high-quality journalism, another key part of our mission is training current and future journalists. We aim to instill our obsession with accuracy in them, too.
In 2016 we began working with The Observatory, a student fact-checking outlet founded by Michael Wagner and Lucas Graves, faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. We assist in fact-checking every story The Observatory publishes.
Adopted May 8, 2018, by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism Board of Directors
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism’s newsroom guidelines on use of unnamed sources are based on the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, approved in 1996, and adopted in full by the Center in 2009; and guidelines publicly shared by The New York Times in July 2016.
The Center’s guidelines on use of unnamed sources:
— Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources’ reliability.
— Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Clarify conditions attached to any promise made in exchange for information. Keep promises.
— Any use of anonymous sourcing must be specifically approved by a top editor such as the managing editor or executive director.
— Direct quotes from anonymous sources should be used rarely, and only when such quotes are pivotal to the story.
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Borna Riazi, 19, said his parents and teachers “never really” pushed him to vote. Riazi did not see voting as something that had a direct impact on his life. Plus, he described himself as “too lazy.”
“I wish you could just show up to a place and just vote,” Riazi said. “Like, no pre-registration, no nothing.”
But being a student on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus before the 2018 midterm elections put voting directly in Riazi’s path. After “annoying” appeals from fellow UW student Eric Schumacher, he finally gave in and registered.
“I wasn’t about to go out of my way, and then they were doing voter registration at the gym,” Riazi said. “I basically live there. … So I was like, ‘Well, I guess I better register.’ ”
Then about a week before the midterm elections, Riazi, Schumacher and their friend Lee Conway walked by a giant giraffe bounce house on the campus of 44,000 students.
University of Wisconsin-Madison students Borna Riazi, left, Lee Conway and Eric Schumacher exit a bounce house sponsored by NextGen Wisconsin on Oct. 30, 2018. The three jumped for about 20 minutes, then crossed the street to the Memorial Union to cast early votes for the midterm election. Riazi, who was voting for the first time, said, “I would have felt bad for hogging it (the bouncy house) and then not voting.” Credit: Emily Hamer / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Field organizers from NextGen Wisconsin, a political action group focused on turning out young progressive voters, encouraged them to enjoy the free bounce house and to vote early. The three jumped for about 20 minutes, then walked across the street to cast their ballots.
For Riazi, NextGen Wisconsin definitely played a role in getting him to vote — a tough job since young people like Riazi show up less than any other age group, especially during midterms.
The stakes are high: By 2020, millennials and Generation Zers together are projected to make up 36 percent of the electorate — more than Baby Boomers at 28 percent, according to Pew Research.
Connie Flanagan, associate dean of the UW-Madison School of Human Ecology and an expert on youth and politics, said people tend to start caring more about politics after finishing their education, getting a job and starting a family — milestones that millennials and Gen Zers are hitting at later ages than previous generations.
According to estimates provided by NextGen, the number of 18-35-year-olds who voted in Wisconsin increased from 232,095 in 2014 to 313,197 in 2018 — an increase of more than 80,000.
Gov. Tony Evers won the gubernatorial election by 29,227 votes.
Ethan Carpenter, a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, votes in the Madison city primary at the Memorial Union on Feb. 19, 2019. “I’m very thankful that the people around me and my parents helped me know that this (voting) was important,” Carpenter said. “Here on the local level, we students can make the greatest change.” Credit: Emily Hamer / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
With young people ages 18-29 supporting Evers by a 60-37 margin over incumbent Gov. Scott Walker based on CNN exit polls, it is clear that new young voters helped to push Evers to his narrow victory.
A NextGen America spokeswoman said her group was the largest in Wisconsin working to turn out young people, although experts caution that without more research, the increase cannot be definitely tied to one group or strategy.
“We believe we have the most staff, the most money invested, the most states, the highest number of total registered voters,” said Olivia Bercow, deputy communications director for NextGen America. “We’re the largest youth vote program in American history.”
Voting brings youth issues to forefront
When young people do vote, politicians take up the issues they care about, Flanagan said. Because of youth involvement in the 2016 presidential primary — particularly Vermont Democrat Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign — issues including the rising cost of college and a $15 minimum wage are “getting attention now.” High youth turnout in the 2018 midterms kept those issues in the forefront, she said.
Young people are often ignored by get-out-the-vote efforts because they are unlikely to turn out and lack a voting history.
Connie Flanagan, associate dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Human Ecology and an expert on youth and politics, said people tend to start caring more about politics after finishing their education, getting a job and starting a family — milestones that millennials and Generation Zers are hitting at later ages than previous generations. Those are among the reasons young voters turn out at such a low rate, Flanagan said. Credit: Jeff Miller / University of Wisconsin-Madison
NextGen America, funded by billionaire activist Tom Steyer, pumped $33 million into 11 states, including Wisconsin, targeted specifically at getting young progressives to the polls for the 2018 midterms. Steyer also leads a national campaign advocating the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
The group’s get-out-the-vote effort in Wisconsin cost nearly $3 million.
“We invest in youth organizing kind of in an unprecedented way,” said Sean Manning, former Wisconsin media manager for NextGen America, who was on the ground for the 2018 midterms.
NextGen used strategies including puppies, goats, rallies and celebrities to get young voters to the polls. And it may have worked.
Sean Manning (yellow jacket), then-Wisconsin media manager for NextGen America, hands out fliers and encourages students to enjoy the free bounce house at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Oct. 30, 2018. “We’re turning voting into this fun, exciting thing,” Manning said of the group’s work in Wisconsin. Credit: Emily Hamer / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
But whether such an effort is sustainable election after election and in settings outside college campuses remain open questions, experts told the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.
Civic education in high school, automatic voter registration, pre-registration for teenagers and removing barriers to register and vote also may be ways to boost the youth vote, they said.
Youth voting up in 2018
Young voter turnout in 2018 was the highest for a midterm election in 25 years, according to exit poll calculations by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, or CIRCLE, a research organization based at Tufts University that focuses on young people.
Roughly 31 percent of 18-29-year-olds turned out nationally for the 2018 midterms, up from 21 percent in 2014, according to CIRCLE. But even with these “extraordinary” increases for a midterm, the vast majority of young people nationwide — 69 percent — still did not vote.
Ismael Cid, 19, said his vote in 2018 was important since the Wisconsin gubernatorial race had such narrow margins. “I was just amazed about how much of a difference 1 percent can really make,” Cid said. He thinks voting is “only important when you really have something that you want to stand for,” and not all young people have that yet. Cid is seen in the Operation Fresh Start office on March 5, 2019. Credit: Emily Hamer / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
The youth rate was higher in five states with competitive gubernatorial races. Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Ohio had a combined average youth turnout rate of 35 percent.
Still, those numbers lagged behind the roughly 50 percent of eligible U.S. voters who cast ballots in the midterms. Wisconsin’s turnout was 61.7 percent, according to the United States Election Project, based at the University of Florida, which tracks voter turnout.
Four experts interviewed by the Center said a long-term solution for getting more young people to the polls involves a lot more than one mobilization effort — even one that has millions of dollars behind it.
“If you ask me, ‘How can we have a solution that raises turnout by like 30 percentage points in one cycle?’ I don’t think we have one,” CIRCLE Director Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg said. “It’s really just not that easy, I’m sorry to say.”
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Goats for votes
NextGen’s efforts in Wisconsin included door knocking, digital advertising, direct mail and a variety of events designed to connect with young people. The group had 66 staff and 1,756 volunteers on the ground at 32 college campuses across Wisconsin, including four-year universities and several community colleges.
At UW-Stevens Point, NextGen hosted a petting zoo with goats, alpacas, ducks and cows. At UW-Madison, celebrities led two canvassing events. At UW-Green Bay, NextGen held a carnival.
NextGen Wisconsin organizers from across the state have dinner together at a Madison restaurant on Nov. 9, 2018, to celebrate Democrat Gov. Tony Evers’ win in the 2018 gubernatorial election. From left are Joe Waldman, regional organizing director; Krish Colon, organizer for the University of Wisconsin-Parkside; Maxwell Coleman, organizer for Waukesha County; and Selma Aly, organizer for Marquette University. Credit: Emily Hamer / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Organizers used other tactics ranging from therapy dogs to giant Connect Four games to get young people engaged. At some get-out-the-vote events, organizers wore shark, T-rex and banana costumes as they gathered pledges to vote.
“We’re turning voting into this fun, exciting thing,” Manning said. “It’s not that it has to be that way, it’s just, why can’t it be?”
NextGen sent nearly 530,000 texts, knocked on nearly 180,000 doors and reached more than 580,000 young voters with digital advertising on platforms including Hulu, YouTube and Instagram.
Riazi remembers seeing NextGen’s advertisements — and although they were “ruining his life” because he could not skip to the video he wanted to watch — the ads worked.
A NextGen America YouTube video encouraging young voters to show up to the polls on Nov. 6, 2018.
NextGen Wisconsin also got nearly 51,000 young people to sign pledges to vote. The group matched at least 40 percent of those names to the list of registered voters. Bercow said incomplete or out-of-date addresses likely led to fewer matches, but also some who pledged did not register. Of those matched, 65 percent voted.
‘Impossible to say’ what drove increases
Unless the pledges were selected randomly, the statistic may not be representative of all young voters, said David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonprofit that works with election officials on issues including increasing voter participation. NextGen focused much of the pledging on college campuses, where young people are more engaged politically, and therefore already more likely to vote.
Frances Bartolutti, 19, at left, and Talia Glass, 15, pledge to vote at a table run by political advocacy group NextGen Wisconsin at the Wisconsin State Capitol on Aug. 4, 2018. Bartolutti said she was looking forward to voting in her first Senate and gubernatorial race. In a later interview, Bartolutti said she voted in the 2018 midterm but that she already planned to do so before making the pledge. Credit: Belle Lin / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
For instance, Frances Bartolutti, a sophomore at Loyola University-Chicago who is from Madison, filled out a pledge card with NextGen at an August anti-National Rifle Association march in Madison, and she voted during the 2018 midterms. But Bartolutti, 19, was already planning to vote. She has voted in every election since turning 18, even sending in an absentee ballot for Madison’s February mayoral primary.
“Growing up, my parents emphasized that you have a voice and you should execute it,” Bartolutti said.
NextGen also targeted youth in Wisconsin who were unlikely to vote.
The group sent mail to more than 166,000 young people ages 18-35 who were either unlikely voters — meaning they never voted before or only voted once — or sporadic voters, who voted only a few times but not consistently. NextGen could match about half of those voters with the voter file; of those, 60 percent voted in 2018.
Turnout among younger voters increased even in states where NextGen was not operating. So far, CIRCLE has released state-by-state voter turnout data for 17 states. Of the four with the highest increases in voter turnout — Georgia, Montana, Minnesota and Nevada — NextGen had a presence only in Nevada.
Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, director of Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), said there is no “magic bullet” for increasing youth voting. “It’s really just not that easy, I’m sorry to say.” Credit: Courtesy of the National Press Club
Becker said one major factor driving people to the polls in 2018 was opposition to Trump.
Kawashima-Ginsberg said another factor was competitive races in many states, places where Becker noted that media coverage and campaign spending are higher.
Positive media coverage of young people, especially of student-led activism following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, also helped, Kawashima-Ginsberg said. Before the midterms, CIRCLE found that 80 percent of 18-24-year-olds thought their generation could make a significant change in the United States.
Abby Kiesa, director of impact at CIRCLE, said there also was lots of peer-to-peer outreach in 2018, something research has consistently found boosts young people’s political engagement. Kiesa said media coverage and young people encouraging their peers to vote combined to “shift the culture” around the 2018 midterms.
The increases in youth turnout could be due to any of these influences, Becker said. NextGen may have had a positive effect, but it is “impossible to say” without more data, he said.
Sean Manning, then-Wisconsin media manager for NextGen America, talks with other organizers at a Madison, Wis., restaurant on Nov. 9, 2018, at a dinner to celebrate Gov. Tony Evers’ win in the 2018 gubernatorial election. Credit: Emily Hamer / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Bercow said NextGen is still excited with what it accomplished, even if the group can only show correlation, not causation.
NextGen has kept staff in all 11 of its states and will be organizing through the 2020 election. Bercow said Steyer is committed to turning out the youth vote, even if there is not a specific dollar amount of what he will invest in the future.
Becker, however, wonders what will happen in 2022 and beyond.
“There’s no way to fund an effort to hold the hand of the 200-plus million eligible voters in the United States for every single election,” Becker said. “It’s just not feasible.”
Getting outside the college bubble
Even after investing more than $30 million, there were young people NextGen did not reach.
NextGen focuses on college campuses because the target demographic is concentrated in one area, Bercow said, but “we’re always looking for ways to expand it.” NextGen also knocked on doors and sent mail to neighborhoods of predominantly young people outside of college campuses and ran digital advertisements throughout the state.
Maia Berlow, NextGen Wisconsin field organizer for Madison, Wis., canvasses to encourage students to vote early on Oct. 30, 2018, on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Credit: Emily Hamer / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
“That is our biggest challenge, reaching young people who don’t live on a four-year college campus, and even reaching young people who don’t go to community college,” Bercow said. “But we are trying to use every resource, every tactic in the book, to do so.”
For those in a college town, messaging about voting was hard to avoid.
Brody Bien, a junior studying molecular biology at UW-Madison, said canvassers frequently knocked on his door, sometimes two or three times a day. Bien said they were “pushy and annoying,” especially since Bien was already planning to vote.
“If you look at young people who are the most privileged and affluent, like young college graduates who make really good salaries, turnout is incredibly high already,” Kawashima-Ginsberg from CIRCLE said. “The problem is the gap. And the reason why it’s so hard to address these gaps … is because it’s deeply embedded in our general social inequalities.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison student Emily Barnhill learns how to canvass from NextGen Wisconsin field organizer Ariella Galston at the group’s office near the UW-Madison campus. Barnhill was about to join a final canvassing push on Nov. 6, 2018, the day of the midterm elections. Credit: Emily Hamer / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
As Bien and Riazi were bombarded with voter mobilization messaging at UW-Madison, Chander Brown, a 20-year-old who lives just a half hour south of the Madison campus, was not contacted by anyone. Brown, who went to Madison West High School, now works for a cleaning company and lives with his parents in Stoughton, Wisconsin.
When asked if any of the get-out-the-vote efforts in Madison reached him, Brown said, “I don’t know what that is, honestly.” Brown deleted most of his social media accounts, so he is a particularly hard young person to contact. In high school, Brown felt like his vote would not count for anything.
Brown’s mindset started to change because of his frustration with Trump. Brown’s father is very passionate about politics. Both factors caused him to “mature” and pay greater attention to the 2018 midterms — even without the urging of NextGen or a political campaign.
“What mostly motivates me (to vote) is just for a change,” Brown said. “I would hope that something could change and that I didn’t just sit back and do nothing.”
‘A vote’s not gonna change nothing’
Jacob Hoskins Jr., 17, has a deep skepticism toward politicians and the government. He is a student in the Legacy Program at Operation Fresh Start, a Madison nonprofit that helps young people ages 16-24 finish their education and gain work experience. Hoskins is working on his high school diploma and developing skills to pursue a career in construction.
When he went to Madison East High School, he said, teachers would tell students to vote, “But we didn’t ever learn about it.” His mom has told him to vote, but it is not a conversation they have regularly. Hoskins also does not talk with his friends about politics.
Haley Hegerfeld-Copenhefer, 18, is a student at Operation Fresh Start in Madison, Wis. Hegerfeld-Copenhefer said her parents, friends and public school did not push her to vote, but staff at Operation Fresh Start encouraged her and helped her register. She voted “to be a voice” and “to be a part of it.” She is seen at the Operation Fresh Start office on March 5, 2019. Credit: Emily Hamer / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Hoskins said he thinks voting is useless. Even when citizens vote, Hoskins said there is a group of “people that sit at the table and make the decisions for us.”
“A vote’s not gonna change nothing,” Hoskins said. “I feel like it’s going to stay the same even after you vote.”
His classmate, Greg Lee, 17, feels similarly. Lee said the only way his representatives would listen to him is if it benefited them.
Ryanne Wolfe, 21, a UW-Eau Claire junior studying criminal justice and Spanish, said she is discouraged that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but Trump still won the presidency. She saw messages on the sidewalks of her campus telling her to turn out. Friends, her parents and canvassers tried to convince her, but Wolfe decided to sit out the 2018 midterms.
“I just didn’t really feel like my vote mattered too much,” she said.
Greg Lee, 17, said he is skeptical about voting in the future because he does not feel his vote matters. Lee is seen at Operation Fresh Start in Madison, Wis. on March 5, 2019. NextGen Wisconsin, which ran a nearly $3 million get-out-the-vote effort in 2018 aimed at young progressives, said it is searching for ways to engage young people outside of college campuses. Credit: Emily Hamer / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Lee, who is African American, said he feels disconnected from his community — even ostracized, because of the color of his skin. People act afraid of him on the bus. He is worried about being stopped by the police. Lee doubts voting would change that.
“If me just going somewhere offends someone, or makes someone uncomfortable, how does voting or something like that — what is that gonna do?” he said.
Bercow, however, said she sees NextGen as a part of the solution for mobilizing young people who feel left out.
“I think we do see ourselves as part of that long-term solution,” Bercow said. “But I also think that we can’t be the ones to do it alone.”
No ‘magic bullet’ for increasing turnout
Beyond efforts like NextGen, there is a wide variety of potential strategies for increasing youth voter turnout, but Kawashima-Ginsberg cautioned there is “no one magic bullet.”
Fifteen states, plus the District of Columbia, have approved automatic voter registration, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit that works to improve democracy and the justice system. Sixteen states plus D.C. have pre-registration for young people to register even if they will not be 18 by the next election. One study found those two strategies together can boost youth voting. Another 16 states and D.C., including Wisconsin, have same-day registration on Election Day.
University of Wisconsin-Madison students wait in line to vote at the Gordon Dining and Event Center polling place on Election Day, Nov. 6, 2018. Democrat Tony Evers narrowly beat incumbent Republican Gov. Scott Walker in the 2018 midterms, and young new voters helped push him to victory. Credit: Emily Hamer / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Minneapolis has a program in which high school students are hired to work at the polls so they can see other young people of diverse backgrounds who “look like them” working at elections.
Experts and advocates suggest other possibilities, including making Election Day a national holiday, lowering the voting age and making student IDs an acceptable form of voter identification. That is something NextGen plans to push in Wisconsin, where student ID cards issued by nine of the UW’s 13 four-year campuses are not valid for voting.
Voter mobilization organizations, including NextGen, have also used apps connecting users to their contacts’ voting histories so they can text them election reminders.
Opportunity Youth United, which develops young leaders living in poverty, had get-out-the-vote efforts targeting basketball teams, community centers and even premieres for the movie “Black Panther.” The organization has 17 community action teams in cities including Milwaukee, Phoenix, Atlanta and New York.
David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said the nation needs a more sustained, nonpartisan effort to increase voter turnout. “There’s no way to fund an effort to hold the hand of the 200-plus million eligible voters in the United States for every single election. It’s just not feasible,” Becker said. Credit: Courtesy of the Center for Election Innovation & Research
Becker said there is a lack of scientific research that can tie any particular strategy to increased youth voter turnout.
“Almost all of the studies you’ll look at are one-offs,” Becker said. “They’re, ‘We did this in this one election and here’s what we think happened.’ And that really doesn’t tell you a darn thing.”
His organization is conducting a long-term study on how election officials — not just campaigns, nonprofits and political parties — can increase voter turnout, which he sees as more sustainable. Whatever the solution, Becker said, it needs to be nonpartisan.
“This is a long-term problem, and it’s not going to be solved because everybody gets a mailed ballot or everyone is automatically registered or Election Day is a national holiday,” Becker said. “Now those might be good ideas, and some of them are good ideas … but they’re not going to fundamentally change the turnout dynamic.”
Changing minds, increasing votes
John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, said there are two forces that work together to get young people to vote: on-the-ground mobilization and changing attitudes toward politics.
John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, said young voters can be mobilized if they believe participating in politics can make a “tangible difference.” Credit: Martha Stewart / Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics
“One of the disconnects between voting and not was the degree to which young people think there’s a tangible difference that politics can make,” Della Volpe said.
The institute has polled young voters since 2000 to better understand the drivers of political participation. There were two moments when there were spikes in the number of young people who thought politics mattered.
Della Volpe said the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, led to 15-point shifts in attitudes, which led to increased voter participation in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008. But once the economy fell into recession, Barack Obama became president in 2008, and political gridlock ensued, the sense that politics mattered dissipated, he said.
The second moment that changed young people’s attitudes about politics was the 2016 presidential election. Della Volpe said young people saw that Trump made a difference — whether they thought that was positive or negative — which led to increases in the number of young people who thought political engagement was important.
Those attitudes continued in 2017 and 2018, and “accelerated” because of mass shootings at a Las Vegas concert and at the Parkland, Florida, high school, Della Volpe said.
When it comes to making a long-term difference in youth voter turnout, CIRCLE’s Kiesa said, young people need to be engaged long before they turn 18.
She said future voters can be cultivated by parents or role models who are engaged politically, learning about voting in school or discussing controversial issues in the classroom. Young people need to learn that their voices matter, Kiesa said.
“Those are experiences that when a young person does turn 18, it makes it more likely that they’ll have that identity to say, ‘I am a voter.’ ”
Emily Hamer
Emily Hamer is a recent graduate of UW–Madison with degrees in journalism and philosophy. She has formerly worked as an intern for University Communications and WisPolitics, and as an editor at The Badger Herald newspaper.