From Wisconsin State Journal: The state’s Republican-led budget committee may have done no greater favor for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism than voting to evict it from two tiny offices in UW-Madison’s Vilas Hall.
Since the early morning, back-room decision surfaced last week, the center has received the kind of national attention – from media and political sources of all ideological stripes – only winning a Pulitzer Prize might have generated.
But that’s the good news. The bad news is that the decision, labeled petty and vindictive by conservative talker Charlie Sykes and yet to be fully explained to the public, is just the latest in a series of high-profile attempts by public officials to stifle a free and open media.
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And just last week, prior to its annual convention, the state Democratic Party refused to allow Capital Times reporter Jack Craver to cover the event because of alleged journalistic misdeeds. Maybe he failed to treat the party and its leaders with the kind of kid gloves and deference expected of a political reporter from a self-proclaimed “progressive” newspaper. Continue to read …
Pitsch is a State Journal assistant city editor and president of the Madison pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.