Monthly Archives: October 2022

Wisconsin Public Radio’s commitment to the highest standards of journalism includes training early career and underrepresented reporters each year. In 2022, three new journalism fellows joined WPR’s news team.

“Educating new journalists through these fellowships is some of the most important work we do,” said interim WPR Director Tom Luljak. “Research-based journalism takes time and attention to detail. We’re mentoring our news fellows in the rigorous practices that lead to accurate, unbiased reporting. It’s wonderful to see the promise these individuals bring, to WPR and to our audience across the state.”

Jonah Chester joined WPR as the new Mike Simonson Memorial Investigative Reporting Fellow. During the one-year fellowship, Chester will work collaboratively with WPR and Wisconsin Watch, the news outlet of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. He’ll deepen his skills in investigative journalism, editing, and on-air production for broadcast and digital platforms. An Indiana University alum, Chester was assistant news director at WORT radio in Madison and has won awards for his work from the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association and the Milwaukee Press Club. Named for award-winning WPR reporter Mike Simonson, who passed away unexpectedly in 2014, funding for the fellowship came from private donors who valued Simonson’s legacy of investigative reporting.

Leah Treidler is WPR’s new Second Century News Fellow. They will produce and file stories originating in Milwaukee. Created in 2016, the Second Century News Fellowship provides an opportunity for young journalists from diverse backgrounds to gain hands-on experience in public media news production. Treidler studied at Oberlin College and was a “Morning Edition” producer at KUER in Salt Lake City. They have already filed stories for WPR on novel solutions to a rural housing shortage, the handling of sexual misconduct in the National Guard, and a controversy over the Eau Claire school board’s guidance on supporting transgender and gender non-conforming students.

Gaby Vinick joined WPR as the 2022 Lee Ester News Fellow. This fellowship was created in memory of long-time Wisconsin journalist Lee Ester to provide opportunities for early career journalists to gain practical experience in public media news production. Vinick is a recent UW-Madison graduate and former managing editor of the UW student newspaper The Daily Cardinal. She has interned for Madison Magazine, News Not Noise, and PBS Wisconsin, and she recently completed a political reporting training program with POLITICO.

“Developing the next generation of journalists is important work, not only for WPR and public media, but for sustaining an informed citizenship,” said interim WPR News Director Kyla Calvert Mason. “We’ve seen journalism come under attack in so many ways in recent years, and it’s absolutely crucial that we’re training people to do what reporters do: to ask hard questions, to dig into research, and to make connections in the community, all leading to accurate and fair reporting. I’m honored to work with these young reporters and help hone their skills.”

To learn more about WPR’s fellowship programs and to see a list of alumni, go to .

Josh Kaul and Eric Toney are miles apart on many issues, but when it comes to open government, the candidates vying for Wisconsin attorney general in the Nov. 8 election agree: more money is needed to handle enforcement of the state’s transparency laws.

The Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council sent questionnaires to Kaul, the Democratic incumbent, and his Republican challenger, Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney.

The state Department of Justice, which the attorney general heads, is empowered by statute to interpret and enforce Wisconsin’s public records and open meetings laws. The department’s Office of Open Government handles that job, in addition to responding to public records requests.

In assessing the office’s strengths and weaknesses, both candidates mentioned the office’s processing times for handling public records requests and responding to inquiries. Toney said the office is not presently prioritized and that DOJ’s response times to public records requests have increased sharply during Kaul’s tenure.

Both candidates cited the need for more funding. Toney wrote that he would “apply sufficient resources and prioritize the proper administration and enforcement of these laws.” He criticized Kaul for not updating advice online since May 2021, and for posting few responses to public records requests on the DOJ website.

Kaul said the Office of Open Government “does an excellent job with the limited resources available,” but that more resources would allow it to respond more quickly. He highlighted the office’s efforts to provide guidance on open meetings law challenges during the early days of the pandemic and for parsing the effects of Marsy’s Law on public records access.

The candidates also commented on two recent state Supreme Court decisions involving the public records law.

In the first case, , the court in a 4-3 ruling changed the standard for when requesters can recover attorney’s fees in lawsuits over access to public records. The decision makes it easier for government authorities to avoid paying a requester’s attorney’s fees by voluntarily releasing the requested records after a lawsuit is filed.

Both candidates expressed concern about the ruling, which Kaul said “removed a key check on unnecessary delays in public records compliance, undermines transparency in government, and, in many cases, could make obtaining records cost-prohibitive.”

Toney said he would work with the Legislature to address the issues raised by the decision, saying “legal maneuvering by well-funded government lawyers should not absolve members of the public from remedies for violations of public records law.”

In the other case, , the state Supreme Court held 4-3 that business groups are not entitled to challenge the Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ decision to release data regarding employers linked to COVID-19 outbreaks. WMC and other trade associations had sued to block disclosure of this data, which the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel requested.

Kaul said he agreed with the decision, which he described as a “straight-forward application of the relevant statutory language.” Toney, echoing the dissenting justices, said the case raised serious privacy issues and suggested there may be “instances where third parties must be able to intervene” in records cases, although this ability “shouldn’t automatically be presumed.”

To read the, see this column at.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (), a group dedicated to open government. Council member Jonathan Anderson is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota and a former Wisconsin journalist.

KBJR-TV, Gray’s NBC and CBS affiliate in Duluth/Superior is combining its journalism operations into one team: Northern News Now.

The station said the move makes Northern News Now the largest newsroom in the Duluth-Superior television market and allows for local newscasts at new times on CBS at 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on weekdays.

Northern News Now will deliver more than 25 hours of original local newscasts weekly on its NBC and CBS channels.

Read more here.