Welcome to Wisconsin Watch.

We care about Wisconsin and the issues affecting the people and quality of life in our state. We are investigating broken and failing systems, holding the powerful accountable, exploring solutions and training the current and next generations of investigative journalists.

We want to hear from you about how we are doing, what you think of our stories, and how we can continue to improve.

Public engagement and marketing assistant Natalie Yahr interviews Bob Blersch on primary election day at the Oconomowoc Community. Katie Scheidt / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

While we are a small-but-mighty team of journalists, you are a frontline witness to life in Wisconsin or wherever you are located. You may help us develop an individual story or line of coverage, answer questions that a story may raise, identify related or under-covered issues, and teach us about new and diverse sources, experts and perspectives.

We believe that our news organization has a responsibility to engage with the public on the values, issues and ideas of the day, and that we have much to gain in return.

We invite your tips, comments and questions on news stories, and suggestions for issues to cover or sources to consult.

We are interested in your views, too. We will publish a selection of letters to the editor, guest columns and other opinion pieces on our site.

Here are the ways you can interact with Wisconsin Watch:

If you contact us via email, you will receive a response confirming that we have received your message from one of our senior editorial staff. We review voicemails and mail as they come in, but we cannot promise that each will receive an individual response. If we can’t meet your needs, we will attempt to point you in the direction of appropriate resources.

We will keep all tips we receive confidential, and will ask your permission to pass the tip along to another news organization if we think it would be better directed or covered elsewhere.

If you’d like to secure the contents of your email message, you can use the Chrome extension Mailvelope. Mailvelope only encrypts the content of your email; it does not encrypt metadata, such as sender, recipient, time or subject. The contents of the message will be encrypted, but whom you communicate with will typically be stored. This metadata will be available to your email provider.

The best way to submit a truly confidential tip is through the mail, using an unmarked envelope and mailing from a public mailbox.

Our mailing address is:
Wisconsin Watch
P.O. Box 55079
Milwaukee, WI 53205

If you write an opinion piece, please send it to opinion@wisconsinwatch.org with a clear subject line such as “Letter to the Editor” or “Opinion piece.” We will respond and discuss with you whether your letter is appropriate for publication on our site, including edits that may need to be made prior to publication.

When submitting an opinion piece, please include your name, title, address and daytime phone number. We request that your letter be brief, timely, respectful, focused, original and relevant to issues that we cover. Please let us know about anything that might be seen as a conflict of interest. Publication of letters to the editor, guest columns and other opinion material does not imply endorsement by Wisconsin Watch. Authors are solely responsible for the facts and views expressed in opinion material published by the Center.

While we no longer allow commenting on our stories directly through our website, please feel free to leave a comment on our Facebook page.

Thanks for being here, and please stay in touch!