Here & Now

Noon Wednesday with guest Dee Hall

Andy Moore:
I have a quote that I want to read you before I introduce Dee Hall. Which I just introduced. Here’s the quote. To increase the quality, quantity, and understanding of investigative journalism. To foster an informed citizenry and strengthen democracy. That’s actually worth reading twice in these times but that is the mission statement for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism which turned 10 years old this month. And Dee Hall is the Managing Editor. Dee also co-founded the center with her husband Andy and Dee thanks for joining us on Noon Wednesday.

Dee Hall:
All right thanks for having me.

Andy Moore:
So why did you and Andy think this whole center up? What was the whole motivation?

Dee Hall:
Well it was at a time you know just over 10 years ago where journalism wasn’t doing that well and a lot of news organizations were pulling back on their investigative reporting because it’s very time consuming, it’s very expensive, and it’s at a moment where some of the financial underpinnings of journalism were collapsing and Andy was thinking about would we keep that going? How could we do something ourselves to keep that going and he thought about what are the things that he really loves and he loves teaching journalism. Journalism students and loves investigative reporting. So it sort of became, it was a personal passion project for us but it was one that we also felt was really really necessary for Wisconsin.

Andy Moore:
Dee and Andy came from an investigative journalism background so they had quite a bit of professional momentum on their own. The center is a headquarters in the school of journalism. Dee mentioned teaching and talk about the mission of the center such as it pertains to the participation of student journalist and what they’re providing people who come to wisconsinwatch.org.

Dee Hall:
This is carried out on a bunch of different levels. One level is that I teach a 400 level investigative reporting class whose mission at the end is to have all of the stories published and distributed by us to the media of Wisconsin and beyond. We’re going into our third year of that. Prior to that we had classroom collaborations in which a professor from the journalism program would teach the class but we came in for the same purpose. To create publishable stories that we could distribute across the state. And in addition to that we serve as lecturers in the classes you know just guest lecturers on specific topics that are of interest to primarily reporting classes. And in addition to that we have our own paid student interns so those are a bunch of different levels on which we operate. We do also sometimes have students who are freelancers who do pieces for us. So we really, students are the heart of what we do really. We have a small professional staff of four full time folks and many of the stories are student driven. And they’re edited by me. Fact checked by me and the student. And distributed by the center. But they are the heart of what we do.

Andy Moore:
When you knife into one of the center’s stories and keeping in mind that these are by in large student journalists these are not snapshots. These are deep deep dives into the most important issues both political and otherwise of our times. What’s the average if there is an average length word count on these pieces?

Dee Hall:
Well for our full length ones they can go up to about 3,000 words and then we put out one that’s about half that size. Because we understand that news holes are not unlimited. If you’re running a newspaper you only have so many inches that you could fill up. So we put out a shortened version to, we put out both. But generally they run the shortened version. We run the longer version on our wisconsinwatch.org website and addition within the past couple of months we began partnering with the Associated Press. They take the shorter version of our story and distribute it across Wisconsin, Minnesota, and also sometimes on the weekend wire.

Andy Moore:
Since you’re talking about distribution and since the center’s work can be seen not only online but also in newspapers around the state that are carrying it both in print and online. Would you mind naming a few papers that people might know about from their own communities that are carrying?

Dee Hall:
I mean the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The Madison and Capital Times. The Appleton Post-Crescent, Green Bay Press Gazette. The Oshkosh Northwestern, Wausau Daily Herald. La Crosse Tribune, Wisconsin State Journal which is where I worked for 24 years. I mean these are papers, Ashland Daily News. You know these are papers all across the state. The Janesville Gazette, the Beloit News. Kenosha News, the Racine Journal Times. I mean they’re numerous papers across the state.

Andy Moore:
Okay that’s that enough. (laughing)

Dee Hall:
Also news websites because there is a nice, there’s a niche that’s developing around the state of news websites too. These are hyper local sites that are also running our stuff and I love to see that going on around the state and these are usually a one or two person operations. But we give them this high quality investigative reports that they can use for free.

Andy Moore:
Full disclosure Wisconsin Public Television has been a partner from the start with the center. 10 years has it gone fast?

Dee Hall:
Some days yes, some days no. I mean it’s a tough job because these are high stakes stories. The fact checking process is grueling but necessary. We spend an average of eight to 12 hours fact checking each story. If it’s a series it can take us days of fact checking just to make sure every fact is correct to the best of our ability to determine it.

Andy Moore:
Let’s take a look back then at a few of the stories that stand out. The center as I’ve mentioned a minute or two ago covers a panoply of issues from criminal background checks on guns. Criminal justice, environment, just to scratch the surface. Let’s talk about one or two or three of the pieces that linger with you after this first decade. What comes to mind?

Dee Hall:
So Andy and I and Lauren and Coburn, the four staff members at the beginning of this year, knowing that we were going to be celebrating our 10th anniversary just looked back at everything that we had published. Oh I can’t remember 300 plus reports. We did come up with a top 10. I could either go through all of those or I can go through some of them. Our top top ones. I can go from one to?

Andy Moore:
Okay.

Dee Hall:
Okay so our top one we decided was Failure at the Faucet. Which was the series that we began in 2015. And is ongoing most of the stuff was published between 2015 and 2017. It won a national SPJ award. And it really looked at the different ways in which Wisconsin’s drinking water is imperiled. And it’s different things. It’s natural stuff, it’s industrial things, it’s farming, it’s you know septic tanks. And it just showed that despite our reputation of having abundant clean water, when it comes to drinking water parts of the state are really having trouble. Anywhere from radium which is naturally occurring down in the Southeastern part of the state to nitrate which is found all over the state in part because of fertilizer. So that was really our top story. That’s the one we did.

Andy Moore:
When did that run?

Dee Hall:
That ran in 2015.

Andy Moore:
What you said.

Dee Hall:
Again in 2015 our last installment officially as part of that I believe was in early 2017. We back in 2010 did a series of stories called Diversity in Dairyland. And it was about immigrant dairy workers who were beginning to come to Wisconsin to work on our dairy farms. Now of course that’s a widely recognized phenomenon. But back in 2010 it was surprising to us. 40% of the workers on Wisconsin dairy farms were in fact immigrants back in 2010. We believe all though there are no current statistics available just anecdotally we believe that’s much higher now. And we have in more recent years done updates to that story. But it’s one that is, you know that’s our signature industry right? The dairy industry and it turns out that without immigrants we would have a hard time sustaining this industry. So that was our number two story. In 2014 we did a story about the segregation unit or the solitary confinement unit at Waupun. Where there have been 40 instances, allegations of severe psychological or physical harm to inmates there by staff. 28 of those involved a single correctional officer. And that was an important story. While we were reporting that story behind the scenes, the Department of Corrections was considering some changes to solitary confinement. We don’t know if it’s tied to the reporting that we did. But that was a very important story to let people know what was really going on in these units where people were spending months and years and turns out even decades behind bars in isolation.

Andy Moore:
The entire list is at wisconsinwatch.org and is published and I didn’t meant to cut you off on number four. ‘Cause number four is good too.

Dee Hall:
Number four yes.

Andy Moore:
But well okay go ahead and do number four.

Dee Hall:
Yes but we did do a blog post and you can read more about all these stories in length. Frac sand mining. So back in 2011 we got a call from Wisconsin Public Radio as it turned out and the reporter up there was seeing these mining operations just pop up and the local towns were struggling with well what kind of permits do we need? And neighbors were concerned and so we were the first news organization to really document this rapid growth in frac sand mining for hydraulic fracturing. So we don’t have any fracking here in Wisconsin. We have the sand that is used in the fracking or hydraulic fracturing process. So just to make that clear. So we started writing about that in 2011 and led that for many years. In fact we had the only map of all of the different sites in the state for a while because the state Department of Natural Resources was not keeping track of where they all were. Now since that agency has taken over that responsibility and we aren’t updating our frac sand mining site anymore. But that was a way where we were really leading. You know because small local news organizations were wondering what is this? And how do we regulate it? And what are the consequences and is it dangerous? And so we took the lead on that. In part because it was sort of in a news desert. And area of the state where you just have small news organizations.

Andy Moore:
And it happened to be about sand.

Dee Hall:
Yes and it was about sand.

Andy Moore:
The nature of all of these pieces. So many details, so many levels of reporting. They’re not put together overnight. That’s what investigative journalism is all about. What is the nature of the need for investigative journalism in these times of 24 seven news channels and daily accusations using words like fake news?

Dee Hall:
Well I think investigative reporting has always been important. But right now there’s so much confusion and concern about what’s factual. And I like the Bob Woodward’s phrase the best obtainable version of the truth. And that’s what we’re always looking for. Because you could have disputes about things like how whether something’s good or bad. But there are certain facts that are just facts. Like my height and weight which I won’t mention either one. Those are actually just facts. That cannot change even if I give you a different number. Those are facts and so that’s what we try to deal in because we think that it is essential to democracy that people are dealing in a common set of accepted facts and what we’re finding now is that people are beginning to not believe the things that are right before their eyes. And I think it’s more important than ever that we keep this up. We keep insisting on things that are factual. Regardless of which party or which faction they might benefit that they are what they are as my mom used to say. It is what it is right. And that’s facts are facts. You can disagree about how important they are whether how you want to spend them. But they still are facts. And so that’s why it’s important right now.

Andy Moore:
Well congratulations on 10 years of fact finding and here’s to 10 years more.

Dee Hall:
All right thanks a lot, appreciate it.

Andy Moore:
Everybody thanks for watching. This went really fast. I hope it went fast for you. I’m Andy Moore. WisconsinWatch.org is the place to go online to see the center’s work. Marisa will be back next week if she gets back from this wedding. If you’re watching Marisa we already told you go help your brother. And Here & Now, 7:30 this Friday night we have a very in depth interview with Democratic candidate Tony Evers. So you’re going to want to tune in for that. Thanks a lot.