Driving home after a recent trip to the DMV, I was listening to WUWM-FM on the radio when a familiar voice spoke through the minivan's speakers.
It was the voice of Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride.
"I support WUWM because of the balanced reporting, which is hard to come by these days," McBride said. "It's important because we have lost a lot of local news sources. This is one of the few places we can go to get news, balanced news, about Milwaukee and the suburbs."
McBride is right. Newsrooms once were willing to invest time and resources to tell the story of our community. Now there is a significant gap in reliable, fact-based reporting about life in suburban cities like Wauwatosa. That is why I started Tosa Forward News in August. This community has given so much to my family since we moved here in 2013. I wanted to give something back, drawing on my professional background of more than 26 years in journalism.
Yet as I listened to the mayor’s words, something rang hollow. From the start, Tosa Forward News’ efforts to cover municipal news have been inexplicably hindered by City of Wauwatosa staff, based on a staff media policy that excludes legitimate news sites like this one. Instead of encouraging more diverse coverage of the city, McBride and other city leaders have consistently asserted and defended the staff's exclusionary media policy.
It is readers like you who pay the price. Here’s why.
Most reporters writing stories about municipal matters would prefer to talk with city employees who are experts on the issues, because that is how to get the most thorough, accurate information to readers.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters get official responses to their inquiries from Wauwatosa, as they should. Their stories and their readers are better for it.
Milwaukee Business Journal reporters get official responses to their inquiries from Wauwatosa, as they should. Their stories and their readers are better for it.
Under the city’s media policy, all such news inquiries are supposed to start with Communications Manager Eva Ennamorato. When I launched Tosa Forward News, I was eager to report on city government and willing to work with Ennamorato to get answers to my questions.
Instead, she has denied virtually every one of my requests for information, and city staff have been instructed to refer every inquiry back to Ennamorato — so she can continue to deny my requests. I have received no reasonable explanation for the city’s double standard in only accommodating some news outlets, not this one.
I described this situation to Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the former editor of The Progressive magazine. Asked for his thoughts, he struggled to see the logic of the city’s actions.
“I think the city of Wauwatosa is in the wrong here, and it needs to clean up its act,” Lueders said.
If you want to contact your council member about the city's media policy, email addresses can be found at the bottom of this page.
I don't take these things personally, but I do take them seriously. As a reporter, I want my stories to be as thorough and accurate as possible. That is still my goal, but the city’s unresponsiveness serves to keep readers of this site in the dark. A limit is placed on the reporting when the city won’t cooperate.
This month, Tosa Forward News broke the story of Sean Lowe winning election to the Common Council in one district while buying a house in another district. The Journal Sentinel later cited Tosa Forward News when it reported its version of the story. Yet Tosa Forward News' coverage still would have been better with comment from city officials on whether the city’s ordinances regulating council vacancies were getting a new look for possible changes.
David Paulsen
Tosa Forward News also is typically the only outlet in the room reporting on the Civic Celebration Commission’s evolving plan for a July 4 fireworks show, yet because city staff won’t talk, it took an open records request and a review of hundreds of pages of emails to write a more comprehensive report.
David Paulsen
And Tosa Forward News was the only news outlet to take a deep-dive look into the city’s tax settlement with Froedtert Hospital and how the various taxing jurisdictions were handling the $10 million refund to the hospital. I wanted to provide some answers to how the "charge backs" paid by the several jurisdictions were being absorbed in their respective tax levies — in other words, how this settlement might affect taxpayers.
If there is one person who knows the most about this settlement, it is probably City Finance Director John Ruggini. I left a voicemail message and emailed him, asking if we could talk through the details so I could better understand how the city had budgeted for its $3 million portion of the settlement and what that might mean for similar negotiations with other large property owners.
The response I received was from Ennamorato. Ruggini would not be answering my questions. No one at the city would, she said.
Although the City of Wauwatosa chose not to cooperate, there are four other taxing jurisdictions, the school district being the largest. The amount it owed as a charge-back for the Froedtert settlement was $3.5 million.
And unlike the City of Wauwatosa, the Wauwatosa School District has been wonderfully responsive to inquiries. Director of Strategic Communications Jessie Tuttle put me in touch with Chief Finance and Operations Officer Scot Ecker, who was open and transparent. Ecker took time to answer my questions about school finances and helped explain the impact to the school district.
David Paulsen
To be clear, no city staff member is required to talk to a reporter. Although open records laws and open meetings laws ensure a basic amount of transparency in municipal government, those laws don't force officials to say anything.
Likewise, even without the city’s cooperation, Tosa Forward News continues to report as thoroughly as it can on city issues. No news organization needs a city’s permission to do that.
I finally received a copy of the city’s media policy after repeatedly asking for months why a communications manager paid by taxpayers would not answer my questions. Put simply, the policy says the city gets to decide who meets its definition of “media,” and city officials have chosen not to recognize Tosa Forward News.
"In determining whether an entity qualifies as media," the media policy reads, "access should be based on neutral criteria and may include factors such as the organization’s longevity, primary business purpose, journalistic standards and independence from advocacy or promotional work. The city retains discretion to determine media status on a case-by-case basis."
By that criteria, Tosa Forward News is “media,” and after more than eight months in operation, the public can assess the site’s track record for themselves.
Become a paying Tosa Forward News member and help support objective community journalism.
Repeated requests, consistent denials
Even so, my inquiries for Tosa Forward News typically have generated some version of this boilerplate response: "The City of Wauwatosa provides detailed responses and interview access to credentialed media outlets. For blogs and non-credentialed news sites, our practice is not to respond individually to inquiries."
I've asked Ennamorato and City Administrator James Archambo more than once what the city means by "credentialed." In my experience, that is a term of art in the journalism industry, not one of licensure. I have never before been asked for my "credentials" when reporting a story on municipal matters. I also have yet to receive clarification of the City of Wauwatosa's definition.
For the record, Tosa Forward News is not a "blog." It is a news website, protected by the First Amendment and committed to all the journalistic standards and fact-based principles upheld by other news organizations on the city's official "credentialed" list.
And yes, the city does maintain a list. I requested it from Ennamorato and received it.
The list contains 28 emails of reporters and news organizations who receive the city’s press releases, media advisories and invitations to news conferences. Many are names you know, and maybe some you wouldn’t expect: Journal Sentinel. WISN. OnMilwaukee. Wisconsin Examiner. Urban Milwaukee. Radio Milwaukee. WUWM. Even the conservative news site Wisconsin Right Now, launched just six years ago by Jim Piwowarczyk and Jessica McBride.
Most of those other outlets rarely cover Wauwatosa news, and none covers it day to day like Tosa Forward News.
“I struggle to see any valid reason that this outlet should not be considered media and included in these communications,” Lueders said. “How hard is it to add someone to a send list?”
Tosa Forward News, in less than a year, has steadily grown its number of subscribers to more than 1,000, yet the city has demonstrated it doesn’t consider those readers — readers like you — worth its time.
I made one last attempt to convince Ennamorato I was “credentialed.” Last week, I emailed her and copied the mayor, the city administrator and the deputy city administrator. In my email, I cited my professional experience, the website’s purpose and my memberships in the Society of Professional Journalists, the Milwaukee Press Club and the Wauwatosa West Allis Chamber of Commerce. Here’s what she said:
“At this time, we’re not moving forward with your request. I have to weigh our decisions against current capacity and reach/impact of outlets within the community. This allows us to ensure that our resources are directed towards outlets that serve broad segments of Wauwatosa.”
The way Wauwatosa implements its media policy means upstart local news sites like Tosa Forward News are at a disadvantage. It is the public that ends up less informed when city officials refuse to cooperate with certain news organizations. I remain hopeful that city staff will reconsider its media policy to allow newer outlets the same access as legacy outlets. Until then, be assured that I'll still be here covering the news for you.
The mayor told WUWM listeners this kind of news coverage was "hard to come by." Sadly, he's right.
It is hard to come by. But it doesn't have to be.
- David Paulsen, a Tosa East Towne resident and editor of Tosa Forward News, has more than 25 years of experience as a professional journalist. He can be reached at editor@tosanews.com.
