Studying Time: 5 minutes
In an period of countless social media feeds, push alerts and newsletters competing on your consideration, we admire the time you spend with our reporting.
We work exhausting to provide tales with a protracted shelf life — these with actionable info that make you assume for weeks or months after studying them. That’s why we get excited once we be taught that exact tales are resonating.
As we glance again on 2024, we’re highlighting the tales that appeared to most curiosity you, at the very least in keeping with the time readers on common spent on their internet pages. Should you missed them earlier, maybe that’s sufficient endorsement to offer them a learn.
If in case you have suggestions on our work, we all the time need to hear it. Tell us how by emailing me at jmalewitz@wisconsinwatch.org.
The businessman: Pig farm developer beneficial properties little belief in Wisconsin city. He doesn’t notably care.
We revealed this story on the finish of 2023, however people had been studying it properly into 2024 and devoting extra time on common than they did for another story this 12 months.
Reporter Bennet Goldstein illustrated how a pig farm developer did not earn the belief of Commerce Lake, Wisconsin, residents because the group realized of their vulnerability to potential environmental harms from agricultural operations. This was a part of the three-part collection Hogtied, which examined the political, regulatory and financial forces shaping a proposal to construct Wisconsin’s largest pig farm.
The Gospel of Matthew Trewhella: How a militant anti-abortion activist is influencing Republican politics
ProPublica Native Reporting Community investigative reporter Phoebe Petrovic advised the story of how a Waukesha County anti-abortion extremist went from political pariah to ideological influencer. Matthew Trewhella regained favor amongst some Republicans by exhorting native authorities officers to reject state and federal legal guidelines that don’t conform with God’s legal guidelines based mostly on an obscure Sixteenth-century principle referred to as “the doctrine of the lesser magistrates.”
In a separate first-person essay Petrovic defined why the story is essential, and she or he later extra broadly detailed how the spiritual proper got here to affect the 2024 election. That was one other story that readers spent extra time with in comparison with most others.
These medical doctors had been censured. Wisconsin’s prisons employed them anyway.
Wisconsin Watch’s Mario Koran, in collaboration with The New York Instances, investigated the checkered disciplinary information of Wisconsin jail medical doctors.
He discovered that just about a 3rd of the 60 employees physicians employed during the last decade had been censured by a state medical board for an error or breach of ethics. Many medical doctors went on to face lawsuits from inmates saying that they made errors that led to critical hurt, resulting in lots of of hundreds of {dollars} in payouts. Lots of the physicians would possible wrestle to get employed at hospitals and in different settings due to these histories, a former state Medical Inspecting Board chairman advised Koran.
Evaluate of Wisconsin speak radio finds stark divides, misinformation
This was a part of a six-part collection, Change is on the Air, produced by Wisconsin Watch and investigative journalism college students on the College of Wisconsin-Madison concerning the altering state of speak radio in Wisconsin.
The truth is-checking six radio hosts throughout the political spectrum, the scholars discovered a disturbing actuality that spoke to our present political second: The reveals spreading essentially the most misinformation had the most important viewers and most promoting. Readers additionally spent extra time on the web page of the collection overview story than most different 2024 tales.
‘A shoot could be authorized. That doesn’t imply it was obligatory.’ Deadly police encounters rise in Wisconsin
In his ultimate story for Wisconsin Watch as a Report for America fellow, Jacob Resneck dug into the disturbing rise in police-involved deaths in Wisconsin over the previous two years. The lawyer basic and the most important police union stated the rise was as a result of extra incidents involving armed and harmful people. That’s even though violent crime is down, and such incidents make up a smaller share of incidents right here than in neighboring states. Wisconsin on the time noticed extra deadly encounters than Illinois, regardless of having solely half the inhabitants.
How Milwaukee’s SDC unraveled: weak controls, little oversight
Addie Costello of Wisconsin Watch and WPR traced the backstory of what occurred to Milwaukee’s Social Growth Fee, which shuttered and laid off its complete employees in April. State and native businesses awarded the intergovernmental fee large contracts even after SDC eradicated inner auditing mechanisms. She discovered that SDC was created by governments however functioned outdoors of them. Authorities officers advised her they largely targeted on how SDC executes contracts with their particular person places of work — quite than broader operations points.
Milwaukee Neighborhood Information Service reporter Meredith Melland contributed reporting to the investigation. She has intently chronicled different twists and turns at SDC, which offered a variety of providers reminiscent of emergency furnace set up, tax help, profession development, senior companionship and hire help for low-income Milwaukee residents.
How Hmong girls in Wisconsin are tackling home violence of their communities
Reporter Zhen Wang wrote a few group of Hmong girls who’re pushing again in opposition to attitudes that forestall girls from reporting abuse and leaving violent relationships. That features providing protected housing, counseling and extra illustration in mediation processes that sometimes precede a divorce sanctioned by Hmong leaders. The ladies are additionally talking out in an ongoing debate concerning the position patriarchal attitudes play in shaping situations that may show lethal.
Relatedly, Wang reported on the promise Wisconsin officers see in “housing first” help of home violence survivors.
Wisconsin seniors face housing upheaval as assisted dwelling properties reject Medicaid
Assisted dwelling can supply residents extra independence and a much less institutionalized setting than in conventional nursing properties. However assisted dwelling residents have fewer protections for residents transitioning to Medicaid, Costello discovered. No less than 4 Wisconsin assisted dwelling amenities involuntarily discharged residents who required Medicaid help between 2022 and 2023.
In the meantime, Medicaid reimbursements lag far behind the price of care, prompting some amenities to refuse to just accept something however non-public pay.
Poopspotting: How AI and satellites can detect unlawful manure spreading in Wisconsin
Goldstein final 12 months obtained a cryptic Excel spreadsheet by means of a public information request. Though he didn’t perceive it on the time, the doc contained a listing of potential unlawful manure spreading incidents that had been observed by satellites orbiting the Earth.
That info led to this partaking story on how Stanford College researchers have used aerial images — snapped by satellites — to show computer systems to acknowledge winter spreading. This all issues as a result of making use of manure atop snow or frozen soil heightens the chance of runoff, which might contaminate water, unfold pathogens, seed algae blooms and kill fish.
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