Wisconsin Watch Media Partners Center (https://partners.wisconsinwatch.org/tag/accountability/)
Nominations are being sought for the 2014 Distinguished WisconsinWatch.orgdog Award, presented annually to recognize an individual’s extraordinary contributions to open government or investigative journalism in Wisconsin.
Attorneys for families of residents say that facilities’ failure to report serious injuries or deaths related to abuse or neglect is not uncommon. Far more often, they say, the state health department only learns about a case of alleged neglect or abuse after a family member files a complaint. Advocates for health care providers stress that incidents of neglect and abuse are extremely rare, and can come to regulators’ attention in a variety of ways.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, the chief author of Wisconsin’s Open Records Law and a strong advocate of the Open Meetings Law, has been named the 2013 recipient of the Distinguished WisconsinWatch.orgdog Award.
Award-winning investigative journalist and University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate Lea Thompson will deliver the keynote address at the third annual Wisconsin Watchdog Awards on April 24.
State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, incoming Majority Leader, has been suggesting that the Government Accountability Board should be governed by partisan appointees, rather than the six retired judges who now do the job. “I just don’t think they’re an independent voice at all,” the Republican from Juneau told the Associated Press.
Nominations are being sought for the Distinguished WisconsinWatch.orgdog Award, presented annually to recognize an individual’s extraordinary contributions to open government or investigative journalism in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin receives a C- in a nationwide ranking of states’ accountability and risk of corruption. The State Integrity Investigation, released today, ranks Wisconsin 22nd, with a score of 70 percent — a score boosted by the creation in 2008 of the state Government Accountability Board to help clean up government.
More than one hundred people or groups paid fines for violating Wisconsin’s campaign finance and ethics laws in the past three years. The violator list reads like a Who’s Who of Wisconsin politicians, and includes some noteworthy outsiders as well.
The backdrop for many of Wisconsin’s current ethical controversies is an unprecedented flow of money into the state’s political machinery. With last year’s Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, some loopholes in the state’s campaign finance laws have grown even wider.
Dick Wheeler, the late founder of the Wheeler Report, has been named the 2012 recipient of the Distinguished WisconsinWatch.orgdog Award in recognition of his four decades of tirelessly opening Wisconsin state government to public scrutiny.
The award is part of the second annual WisconsinWatch.orgdog Awards reception and dinner, presented jointly on Wednesday, April 25, by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the Madison Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Walt Bogdanich, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate, will deliver the keynote address at the second annual WisconsinWatch.orgdog Awards on April 25.
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and MAPLight.org announced a major initiative to help the public and journalists investigate the influence of money in Wisconsin state politics and policymaking.