WTMJ | Associated Press | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | CJR |
A Wisconsin legislative committee’s motion to kick the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism off the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison “combines some of the worst aspects of the IRS and DOJ scandals,” Milwaukee radio talk-show host Charlie Sykes writes, “using government to punish those perceived as political enemies combined with a clear assault on the free press. … The move should especially appall those of us in the conservative media.”
Republican state senator Dale Schultz called the action “petty,” the Associated Press reports.
The committee’s vote was “12-4 along party lines, with Republicans in the majority,” Karen Herzog reports in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The center produces Wisconsin Watch and has a “tight-knit” relationship with Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Anna Clark writes on CJR.
The center has access to two small offices at the school for use by its four-member professional staff and four UW reporting interns, plus a third room for summer interns. That internship program, which has involved nearly two dozen students to date, is robust: it offers paid opportunities to do public-service journalism, several interns have won awards for their WCIJ work, and many have gone on to professional journalism careers.
