MADISON, WI — Religious faith remains a key component of public and private life in the United States. Yet, America’s religious landscape is shifting, and as a result news coverage of religion has never been more important.

The Madison chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Lubar Institute for the Study of the Abrahamic Religions at UW-Madison, the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and the Stephen & Laurel Brown Foundation invite you to a major national conference on journalism and religion.

“Reporting on Religion: Media, Belief and Public Life” will give journalists an opportunity to explore one of the most important, sensitive and controversial topics in contemporary America.

The one-day conference – held Monday, March 14, 2016, in Madison WI — will feature journalists and scholars who will help journalists and students gain a deeper understanding of the role religion plays in public life, how religion is represented – or not – in the news media today, and how to improve reporting of this important subject. The conference will culminate in a keynote address, open to the public, by television journalist David Gregory, the author of “How’s Your Faith? An Unlikely Spiritual Journey” and the former moderator of Meet the Press.

Registration is now open. Click here for the conference website, and to register.

Follow us on Twitter @reportreligion.

The conference lineup includes sessions on:

• “America’s Changing Religious Landscape.” Besheer Mohamed, senior researcher for the Pew Center on Religion and Public Life, will present Pew’s groundbreaking research on religion in America. Cathy Lynn Grossman, senior reporter, Religion News Service, will comment.
• “How the Press Covers Religion and Spirituality” with Grossman, James Davis, contributor to GetReligion.org and The Florida Catholic, Chuck Stokes, editorial/public affairs director, WXYZ-TV, Detroit, and Jaweed Kaleem, senior religion reporter, Huffington Post.
• Some of the hottest issues surrounding religion and public life in the U.S., including the conservative and liberal divide in Catholicism and other Christian faiths, fast-growing U.S. religions, and religious extremism. With Doug Erickson, religion and education reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal, Bob Smietana, news editor, Christianity Today, and Dilshad Ali, managing editor, Patheos Muslim Portal.
• “A Journey Through New York City Religions” with Tony Carnes. Carnes has documented religion in the nation’s largest city for the last five years.
• “Religious Freedom and Freedom of Conscience,” a wide-ranging discussion featuring religious advocates, with a response from David Gregory, former moderator, Meet the Press.

More information about the conference lineup, the conference organizers and logistical details can be found here.

The conference is generously underwritten by the Lubar Institute and the Stephen & Laurel Brown Foundation, creators of Upper|House. It will be held at Upper|House, 365 East Campus Mall, adjacent to UW-Madison’s Vilas Hall.

Patron sponsors include the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association, the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, the Wisconsin State Journal and WKOW-TV. The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is a supporting sponsor.

Registration includes lunch and is free for students, $15 for SPJ members, and $30 for non-SPJ members. The conference is aimed at journalists, but is open to the general public.
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The American wheat beer will debut March 16 at a celebration of Sunshine Week, the annual event honoring open government and the First Amendment. The celebration takes place from 6-9 p.m. at Next Door, 2439 Atwood Ave., Madison.

Sunshine Wheat features brewers malt, flaked wheat and crystal wheat from Wisconsin-based Briess Malt and Ingredients Company and Brewer’s Gold hops from Gorst Valley Hops of Mazomanie. It will feature an exotic dry hop. Sunshine Wheat will hold 4.8 percent alcohol-by-volume, 22 IBUs and a 5.6 SRM.

The Wisconsin Newspaper Association is the lead sponsor of the SPJ Madison-Next Door Brewing event. Other sponsors include WKOW, Wisconsin State Journal, With Gusto, Isthmus, and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

SPJ Madison, Next Door Brewing collaborate on American wheat beer to honor the First Amendment, open government and Wisconsin journalism

MADISON – The Madison chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and Next Door Brewing invite journalists and advocates of open government to celebrate Sunshine Week with the tapping of Sunshine Wheat, an American wheat beer featuring local hops and malts, on Monday, March 16.

The celebration takes place from 6-9 p.m. at Next Door Brewing, 2439 Atwood Avenue, Madison. The first 50 attendees will receive a souvenir beer glass thanks to the generous lead sponsorship of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. WKOW-TV, the Wisconsin State Journal, Schott, Bublitz and Engel, and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism are supporting sponsors. Two tickets to upcoming Isthmus events – Isthmus Food Cart Fest, Paddle & Portage, Beer & Cheese Fest — will be awarded in a drawing, courtesy of Isthmus. With Gusto is making a poster for the event, prints of which will be available for $15 each.

Next Door head brewer Bryan Kreiter will speak about creating the beer and his use of local ingredients at 7 p.m. He will be followed with remarks by WNA executive director Beth Bennett about Sunshine Week.

Invited special guests include Wisconsin food and beer writers Chris “Beer Baron” Drosner, Robin Shepard, Laurel White, Linda Falkenstein, Barry Adams, Kathy Flanigan and George Zens.

March 16 is the 264^th anniversary of the birth of James Madison, father of the First Amendment and the man for whom the City of Madison is named. Sunshine Week, a national event in support of open government, runs March 15-21.

The event is free, and all area journalists are welcome to attend. There will be a cash bar; appetizers will be provided. RSVPs are appreciated to [email protected].

Based in Indianapolis, SPJ is a national membership organization that promotes high professional and ethical standards among journalists, First Amendment principles and the belief that a free and vigorous press is vital in a representative democracy. The Madison professional chapter was formed around 1990. Membership costs $75 annually, and it is open to journalists who spend at least half of their professional life writing or editing work for publication.

Contact: Mark Pitsch, [email protected]; 608-252-6145

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:

• The Obama administration targeted the Associated Press and a Fox News reporter for doing their jobs – seeking information from government sources that could be important for the public to know.

• Gearing up to convince voters to let him lead the state’s public school system, Rep. Don Pridemore identified reporters he perceived as liberal and told his staff in a grammatically challenged memo to demand their questions in writing.

• Last fall, the Senate campaigns of Republican Tommy Thompson and Democrat Tammy Baldwin corralled the media in roped off pens that made conducting interviews and taking photos and video more difficult.

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. Recall, this is the same political party that forcibly kicked out another reporter last year, this one from Wisconsin Reporter, a conservative media outfit that writes from a “free-market” perspective. Ironically, Craver first caught the DPW’s attention by writing about, yes, the party’s dismissal of Wisconsin Reporter journalist Ryan Ekvall.

One of the more popular parlor games among journalists these days is debating which gubernatorial administration, that of Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, or Gov. Jim Doyle, his Democratic predecessor, has better deflected and delayed routine media inquiries. Walker’s government seems to have one-upped Doyle’s. But to his credit, Walker has been downright magnanimous in answering questions from the press after various events in Madison and around the state. Something tells me he and his advisers find value in allowing him to tell the public why he does what he does. Were it so among state agencies.

Do you sense a pattern here? Perhaps Democrats and Republicans have found something on which they agree.

It bears repeating that the city of Madison was named for the Father of the Constitution and the author of the Bill of Rights. James Madison believed that a truly democratic society relied on the free flow of information. His colleague Thomas Jefferson believed a free press was vital to the sharing of information.

There’s still a chance the Legislature will reverse the decision to remove the WCIJ from UW-Madison. The backlash has been that swift and nearly universal. And if it doesn’t, Gov. Walker could always veto the provision.

Whatever happens in the short term, however, the investigative center will continue to thrive. Nothing spells success in journalism like doing good work, and making a few enemies.

Mark Pitsch is president of the Madison pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He is an assistant city editor at the Wisconsin State Journal.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Mark Pitsch, 608-252-6145

MADISON – The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is an important part of the media landscape in Wisconsin. Its criminal justice, environmental, political and other reporting has garnered national and statewide attention – including by the Wisconsin Legislature – and its work is made available for free on the center’s website and to media outlets statewide.

The center’s work with UW-Madison has been an effective collaboration that has allowed young journalists to obtain vital training. It offers the public a look at the changing journalism present and the kind of journalism operations that will exist in the future.

The center is nonpartisan, and its work seeks to hold government officials accountable for decisions that affect all Wisconsinites. The state is richer for its presence.

The Madison pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists supports the work of the center. Further, it is a partner with the center on the annual Watchdog Awards; our organization’s vice president is a center employee.

Journalists across the country are increasingly subject to scrutiny and retaliation by political leaders of both parties. We don’t understand why the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee is requiring the center to leave UW-Madison, and we wish lawmakers had subjected this proposal to public debate. We believe the center will thrive, with or without a physical presence in the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

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The award is a highlight of the third annual Wisconsin Watchdog Awards reception and dinner, presented jointly on Wednesday, April 24, by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the Madison Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

“The Open Records Law which Lynn Adelman introduced and worked hard to pass, and the Open Meetings Law he championed, are the bedrock documents of open government in Wisconsin,” said Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.

“All those who care about the state’s traditions of openness and its commitment to an informed electorate, so essential to a representative democracy, owe him a huge debt a gratitude.”

Adelman was born in Milwaukee. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School.

In 1977, Adelman was elected to the state Senate to represent the 28th District in southeastern Wisconsin. He held the position for 20 years.

Adelman was the principal sponsor of the current version of the state’s Open Records Law, passed in 1981, and a major participant in a 1983 revision of the Open Meetings Law.

Adelman, 73, was appointed in 1997 by President Bill Clinton as a judge in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

The Wisconsin Watchdog Awards, a celebration of investigative reporting and open government, also will feature a keynote address by Lea Thompson, an award-winning investigative journalist and University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate.

Thompson, a Wisconsin native, was a chief correspondent at Dateline NBC for 16 years, and is known for her hard-hitting investigative pieces on consumer, health and safety issues. She now teaches investigative reporting around the world and produces documentaries.

Also at the event, winners of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council’s annual Opee Awards will be recognized for their work promoting open government, and the Madison SPJ chapter will review the year in journalism.

The event at the Madison Club, 5 E. Wilson St., is sponsored by the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, Wisconsin Broadcasters Association, Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WISC-TV and the law firm McGillivray Westerberg and Bender.

Additional sponsors are being sought. Information is available at wisconsinwatch.org.

The evening will begin with a reception at 5 p.m., followed by dinner at 6. Tickets are available for $55.

Register online at wisconsinwatch.org. Attendance is limited to 120 and organizers expect all tickets will be sold.

The panel — George Stanley, managing editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; John Smalley, editor of the Wisconsin State Journal; Bill Lueders, Money and Politics project director at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, and Kathleen Culver, professor at the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communications — discussed whether journalists should be able to sign gubernatorial recall petitions and other ethical issues surrounding the recall of Gov. Scott Walker. The panel was sponsored by the Madison pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

To access the audio and video, go here.