Kaiser Joins Board of Madison News Site

Martin Kaiser, who led the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to three Pulitzer Prizes, has been elected to the board of directors of the nonprofit and nonpartisan Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

Kaiser had a distinguished two-decade newspaper career in Milwaukee before stepping down in 2015 as Editor/Senior Vice President of the Journal Sentinel to become a journalism consultant. He specializes in leadership, digital innovation, ethics, investigative reporting and editing.

“We are delighted that Marty has joined the Center board,” said Brant Houston, board president and Knight Foundation Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. “He brings great experience and knowledge in journalism and in management. We are honored that he has agreed to serve.”

A nationally acclaimed board of directors, including experts in investigative journalism, nonprofit journalism and nonprofit financial management, determines the Center’s policies, while day-to-day operations are handled by the staff. The board now has nine members.

Beginning in 1994, Kaiser joined the Milwaukee Journal, predecessor to the Journal Sentinel, as Managing Editor/Vice President, and went on to serve as the Journal Sentinel’s Editor/Senior Vice President for 18 years. Under his leadership, the Journal Sentinel won three Pulitzers, was a finalist six other times, and built a national reputation for its investigative reporting, writing and digital innovation.

Before arriving in Milwaukee, Kaiser was Associate Managing Editor of the Baltimore Sun. He previously served in editing and reporting positions at the Chicago Sun-Times, and at Florida newspapers in Sarasota and Clearwater.

Named Editor & Publisher magazine’s Editor of the Year in 2009, Kaiser served as president of the American Society of News Editors in 2009-10.

“It is an honor to join the board of such a distinguished investigative journalism organization,” Kaiser said. “The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has a vital role at a time when investigative reporting has never been more important to our democracy.”

Kaiser is a member of the board of the American Society of News Editors Foundation, the advisory board of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Journalism Advisory Board of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, the Colby College (Maine) Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award board and has been a Pulitzer Prize judge three times. He earned his bachelor’s degree at The George Washington University and completed the Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management Executive Program.

The award-winning Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (WisconsinWatch.org) increases the quality and quantity of investigative reporting in the state, fostering an informed citizenry and strengthening our democracy, while training current and future generations of investigative journalists.

Its guiding values: Protect the vulnerable. Expose wrongdoing. Seek solutions.

The Center, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, launched in 2009. It collaborates with, but is independent of, the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication, where it is housed; Wisconsin Public Radio; Wisconsin Public Television; and news organizations across the nation.

The Center’s four-member professional staff supervises and trains paid interns who serve as investigative reporters and public engagement and marketing specialists. The Center also trains high school, college and professional journalists. The Center’s stories are distributed free of charge for use by news outlets in Wisconsin and beyond. The Center has produced nearly 300 major reports that have been published, broadcast or cited by more than 500 news outlets. The estimated total audience for its work is 56 million people.

The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.