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Following the stimulus money in WisconsinSHOWCASE | June 152, 2009Mark Katches’s investigative unit in Milwaukee is producing many news articles, databases and interactive items that track what happens to federal stimulus dollars that go to Wisconsin. It’s a main watchdog project at the Journal Sentinel, but by no means the only one. By Alex Byers Mark Katches calls it the kind of story that makes you excited to be a journalist. The deputy managing editor overseeing projects, investigations and planning at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Katches is referring to his organization’s “Following the Money” package – a wide-ranging series that tracks how federal stimulus dollars are spent in Wisconsin. The series has been in place for nearly three months and has produced more than 25 separate articles, databases, and interactive pages. But while “Following the Money” has generated plenty of content, it is just the latest example in a two-and-a-half year surge in investigative reporting at the Journal Sentinel. Pieces produced by Katches and nine reporters have won multiple national awards and addressed concerns in business, local politics, and other areas. It’s a task the editor and his team take seriously and deem vital. “This is a time that makes newspapers more relevant than just about anything else,” Katches, shown at right, said in a telephone intrview. “There is a massive amount of money coming and being doled out with very little oversight, and it’s really a newspaper’s responsibility that the dollars are accounted for and the program is accounted for.” Katches came to the Journal Sentinel, daily circulation approximately 215,000, in late 2006 and was charged with the duty of putting together a strong watchdog unit. The team started with 10 reporters – it has lost one to a buyout – and saw its first story win a Pulitzer Prize for local investigative reporting. Story ideas come from readers, editors, and reporters, but the best reports are the ones that “bubble up from beats,” Katches said. (The Journal and Sentinel, two papers that started out in the 19th century, merged news operations in 1995. The Journal was led for many years by Lucius Nieman, whose wife, Agnes, made the donation that created the Nieman Foundation). “The team has had phenomenal success. All the pieces were in place by the Spring of 2007. We launched a Web site then, and we haven’t looked back,” he said. “We’re all very proud of what the team has been doing here.”
Another series focused on the use of potentially dangerous chemicals in everyday consumer products. The federal government said it would do tests to ensure the chemicals were not dangerous, but a decade later tests still had not been conducted, the report said. That series had a particularly large impact, Katches said. “It’s making a difference. The stories we’re always most proud of are the stories that change lives,” he said. “These stories made products safer for kids because they raised awareness, Congress is taking action, things are being done to help ban a dangerous chemical.” Smaller, quicker reports also have had an impact. In an article in the Nieman Reports Fall 2008 issue, Katches wrote, “Instead of emphasizing only ambitious projects that can take months, quick-hit investigations, blogs, consumer-focused watchdog stories, and searchable data-bases are stressed.” One such quicker story, an August 2008 article, revealed that a Milwaukee school board member had gone to Philadelphia on taxpayer money to attend a school safety conference. She didn’t actually attend the conference, though, instead staying in her hotel, sightseeing, and effectively wasting the taxpayer funds. A criminal investigation and a review from the school board followed that story, Katches said. In April 2009, that school board member failed to get enough signatures to remain on the ballot for another term. Internally, Katches said it was difficult to say whether the Watchdog team’s work is helping fight declining circulation numbers. Though he said he didn’t know of any data that showed the investigative reports directly propping up circulation, Katches said he felt the Journal Sentinel’s daily circulation may be declining slower than other papers and that his team hears from readers nearly everyday who say the Watchdog work is a key reason they buy the paper. An Audit Bureau of Circulation report at the end of April showed weekday circulation down by 6.7 percent from a year earlier and Sunday circulation down by 6 percent, figures in line with losses at dailies nationally. “The Journal Sentinel has one of the highest penetrations of any newspaper in America. We are putting out a terrific product in a one-newspaper town and we have a very loyal readership base,” he said. “That said, we are not immune to the industry’s challenges. Due to economic pressures related to the economy and changes in our industry, we’ve had three rounds of buyouts since 2007. I’m not tracking how many buyouts or layoffs are occurring at other newsrooms. But anyone who reads Romenesko knows it’s happening everywhere and often.” Making an impact through investigative reports is something every newspaper can do, Katches said. Though investigative reporting can be expensive, Katches said top editors at the Journal Sentinel have provided his team with sufficient, though not overly extensive funding. In his view, newspapers can often find the resources they need to start watchdog teams in their own newsroom. “It definitely can be done,” he said. “Most of the people that joined this team here came from within the newsroom…It’s just a matter of identifying the important areas where you want to focus investigative resources. Once you decide what the topics are, try to find people who have a track record for doing investigative reporting and see if you can steer them into those investigative beats to mine for great stories.”
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