Wisconsin Weekly: Wisconsin patients left waiting as omicron fills hospitals

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Reading Time: 4 minutes
Hospital crisis; Capitol insurrection anniversary; GOP election scrutiny; whooping crane worries; understanding conspiracy theories

Of note: This week we highlight the Journal Times’ coverage of Wisconsin’s overflowing hospitals as the omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads rapidly across the state and country, affecting patients of all types. “America’s health care system is so strained by COVID-19 that it simply cannot care for all of the people who are sick right now — whether with coronavirus or with a severe viral infection, heart attack, stroke, car crash or other malady,” Adam Rogan reports. Nearly 95% of Wisconsin’s ICU beds were in use as of Tuesday, and more than 78% had ICUs at peak capacity, according to the Department of Health Services. About 10,200 Wisconsinites have died from COVID-19, according to the agency’s official tally. 
Access to some stories listed in the Wisconsin Weekly roundup may be limited to subscribers of the news organizations that produced them. We urge our readers to consider supporting these important news outlets by subscribing. 
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Your Right to Know: How to obtain public records: A primer

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Reading Time: 3 minutes

Every time an elected official sends an email, it becomes a public record. When an employee at a government agency makes a purchase, that transaction is the public’s business. Whenever a permit or license is issued by a government authority, this is information you should be able to obtain. Steven Potter
These records, which include everything from construction contracts and meeting minutes to electronic correspondence and court filings, offer a behind-the-scenes look into how governments function. In many cases, public records contain discussions that show how and why individuals employed by city, county, state and federal agencies make decisions and spend tax dollars.

‘Evolve or die’: Wisconsin’s labor shortage could last years. Here’s how employers, workers can succeed

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Reading Time: 7 minutes

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit newsroom that focuses on government integrity and quality of life issues. Sign up for our newsletter for more stories and updates straight to your inbox. This piece was produced for the NEW News Lab, a local news collaboration in Northeast Wisconsin. Microsoft is providing financial support to the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation and Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region to fund the initiative. To understand how Wisconsin’s labor shortage has transformed the jobs market, look no further than an Oct.

Wisconsin Watch’s best photos from 2021 capture moments of elation, contemplation and joy.

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Reading Time: 4 minutes

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit newsroom that focuses on government integrity and quality of life issues. Sign up for our newsletter for more stories and updates straight to your inbox. In mid-November I spent a week in the dark media room attached to courtroom 4B of the Dane County Courthouse in Madison. Shooting through the thick glass with my long lens, I documented the trial of a Stoughton woman who had been accused of abusing a child in her care. Her case was similar to others Wisconsin Watch has been reporting on for years, as part of our investigation into the controversial diagnosis of “abusive head trauma,” chronicled in our series Flawed Forensics.

Wisconsin Weekly: GOP state senator: ‘No one should falsely accuse election officials of cheating’

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Reading Time: 4 minutes
Election system targeted; higher ed hurdles; COVID death toll; subsidizing danger; rural skepticism around Biden spending   

Of note: First, a quick update from Wisconsin Watch’s business team: We’re just $9,987 away from reaching our goal of raising $20,000 to meet a match from NewsMatch by midnight on Dec. 20. If reading Wisconsin Weekly — or our in-depth coverage of issues like the environment, justice, education and health — bring value to you, please consider donating today. 
Now, back to the news. This week we highlight our coverage of bipartisan pushback against the role of some Wisconsin Republicans in a nationwide push to contest the audited and verified results of Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, investigate state and local election systems and shift more power over elections to Republican-controlled legislatures. State Sen. Kathleen Bernier, the Republican chair of the Senate elections committee, is joining independent election experts in criticizing a campaign to discredit the bipartisan Elections Commission that Republicans created under former Gov. Scott Walker, Brenda Wintrode and Jim Malewitz report for Wisconsin Watch.

MATC broadens access for Milwaukee students amid historical inequities, dropping enrollment

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Reading Time: 12 minutes
Four INN newsrooms spent several months reporting on community colleges in Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee and Minneapolis/St. Paul for the project Broken Ladder. The participants — Borderless Magazine, BridgeDetroit, Sahan Journal and Wisconsin Watch — explored the barriers facing community college students, who are often immigrants and people of color. Claire DeRosa / Wisconsin Watch
Jasmin Treske had planned to go to college after graduating from South Milwaukee High School. She picked out classes at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and attended orientation, but the looming financial commitment spooked her.

At Wisconsin Watch’s News414, help is on the way!

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Reading Time: 2 minutes

When a powerful storm knocked out power for days across Milwaukee in August, vulnerable residents faced a multi-pronged disaster. The outage left thousands without air conditioning during the hottest stretch of the year, while food spoiled in the refrigerators of people who already had trouble affording groceries. 

Connecting residents with credible information about power outages, finding cooling centers and free meals and replacing spoiled groceries became critical. Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS) sprung into action through News414, a service journalism collaboration that delivers actionable information to traditionally underserved residents. 
Reporters quickly published and repeatedly updated a list of resources and answers to common questions on the NNS website and in a News414 Facebook group that now has 700-plus members. That information was widely read and shared online, including by service agencies that serve vulnerable populations. Recognizing that some residents lacked internet access — particularly during the power outage — we also texted the information to about 1,300 people, inviting them to connect with a reporter if they had additional questions or problems. 
Several residents who rely on state food assistance told us that they didn’t know there was a way to apply for replacement funds for spoiled groceries — until we told them.

‘This is a charade’: GOP senator, voting experts urge Wisconsin Republicans to halt election attacks

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Reading Time: 4 minutes
The Republican chair of the Wisconsin Senate elections committee on Monday urged members of her own party to halt their attempts to discredit the bipartisan elections system they created and to oust the state’s top official. The moves began after President Joe Biden’s narrow victory over Donald Trump in Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential race. “We have a great system here, and no one should falsely accuse election officials of cheating,” Sen. Kathleen Bernier, R-Chippewa Falls, said at a state Capitol event organized by Washington, D.C.-based Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR), a nonprofit that works with Republican and Democratic elections officials nationwide. “The misinformation and disinformation that has been perpetuated is very frustrating to me.”
Bernier, who oversaw elections for 12 years as the Chippewa County clerk, accused some Republicans of spreading falsehoods about Trump’s 2020 election loss to “jazz up” their political base. And she called on former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to finish his partisan review of the election soon — to limit the damage to the Republican Party and Wisconsin’s democracy.

Come work with us! Wisconsin Watch seeks UW-Madison reporting interns for spring and summer 2022

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Reading Time: 2 minutes
Wisconsin Watch reporting intern Zhen Wang conducts an interview on Dec. 1, 2021 in Waukesha, Wis. Wisconsin Watch is seeking applicants from the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication for investigative reporting internships for spring and summer 2022. Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch
Wisconsin Watch, the award-winning newsroom of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, is seeking applicants for an investigative reporting internship beginning Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022 and working 10 to 20 hours a week through the end of the semester.

‘Preserving these places is paramount’: How photographer Brett Kosmider documents Door County, Wisconsin’s fragile, changing landscape

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Reading Time: 5 minutes

This piece was produced for the NEW News Lab, a local news collaboration in Northeast Wisconsin. Microsoft is providing financial support to the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation and Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region to fund the initiative. Thousands of tourists flock to Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula each year, drawn to the beauty of its 300 miles of shoreline jutting into Lake Michigan: the beaches in summer, the orange and yellow sugar maples in fall and spectacular ice formations on the lakes in winter. Photographer and videographer Brett Kosmider has dedicated much of his career to documenting life and nature in a place that he calls one of the “great anomalies in the world.”
That includes piloting his drone high above places otherwise inaccessible to people and capturing images that show how landscape is changing with the climate. And he contributed to Wisconsin Watch’s Imperiled Shores series to show what wildly fluctuating water levels mean for Northeast Wisconsin communities. 
“Without preserving these places, Door County would not be what it is today,” Kosmider said.

Wisconsin Weekly: ‘No place to go’: Hospitals packed (again) as COVID-19 disproportionately sickens, kills the unvaccinated

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Reading Time: 4 minutes
COVID surge; battered state parks; housing crisis; hospitals sue patients; tossed election complaint

Of note: This week we highlight coverage of the crisis in Wisconsin’s hospitals as COVID-19 patients — the majority of them unvaccinated — again pack emergency rooms and ICUs, meaning long waits and forcing some hospitals to turn down requests for transfers of patients who need advanced or specialty care. “We’re paralyzed. We have no place to go with these folks,” Heather Schimmers, chief nursing officer at Gundersen Health System’s La Crosse hospital, told Madeline Heim and Natalie Eilbert of the Appleton Post-Crescent. Gov. Tony Evers is asking the Biden administration to send 100 health care workers to boost hospital staffing as hospitalizations reach numbers not seen since last winter — before COVID vaccines were available.   
Access to some stories listed in the Wisconsin Weekly roundup may be limited to subscribers of the news organizations that produced them. We urge our readers to consider supporting these important news outlets by subscribing. 
Thanks for reading!