Was Dan Bice Wisconsin’s Most Important Journalist?

Dan Bice

With the election for governor, attorney general, the state’s congressional delegation and members of the Legislature only six months away, Wisconsin needs the aggressive journalism of Dan Bice more than ever.

It won’t have it, though. The funeral for Bice, the aggressive, take-no-prisoners journalist for the Milwaukee Sentinel and then the merged Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, was last weekend.

Bice died of esophageal cancer on his 62nd birthday. Way too soon.

Disclosure: I was the Sentinel’s Capitol bureau chief when Dan joined us to cover then-Gov. Tommy Thompson and the legislative and judicial branches of state government. It was a joy to work with him until Sentinel editors in Milwaukee saw how good he was and transferred him to the main newsroom there.

Dan was an excellent Capitol reporter who developed hundreds of contacts and got even better when paired with former partner Cary Spivak on an investigative column that Bice later continued on his own with his “No Quarter” column.

How good was Dan? Prominent conservative George Mitchell, a frequent critic of Sentinel and Journal-Sentinel coverage, once wrote this in a column for Urban Milwaukee: No one in Wisconsin journalism “occupies center stage more than the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Dan Bice. It’s really not even a close call.”

The Journal Sentinel’s story on his death noted a few of Dan’s journalistic achievements, including reporting with Spivak that ended the political career of former Mayor John Norquist.

In recent years, the Journal Sentinel noted, Bice covered the record-breaking Supreme Court race between Janet Protasiewicz and Brad Schimel, the arrest and resulting court case of former Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan and “the campaign of [Republican] gubernatorial hopeful Bill Berrien, who ended his political run after Bice reported on his online activity.”

Dan fearlessly reported on both Democrats and Republicans.

But that was the public Dan Bice. The family’s obituary adds some biographical details I never knew.

“He attended Bryan College in Tennessee, majoring in English, History, and Ancient Greek… He began his reporting career at the St Petersburg Times before returning to West Virginia, where he covered state politics. He matriculated to the University of Chicago and, upon completion of a master’s in social science, accepted a job in the Milwaukee Sentinel’s Madison Bureau.

“Thus began his three-decade reign of terror speaking truth to power in Wisconsin state politics.”

“I used to kid him that he was ‘equal opportunity,’ in the sense that he’d go after Republicans and Democrats,” former Republican Gov. Scott Walker told the Journal Sentinel.

“There were times when I liked what he wrote, and there were other times that I didn’t like it at all,” Walker said. “It probably was a good sign he was pursuing the role of the journalist, which was without regard to politics or other bias.”

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, a survivor of esophageal cancer, said: “I’ll remember him for how he lived, approached his work, and how he fought until the end — unflappable, relentless, and indefatigable.”

In their obituary, Dan’s family discussed another side of him: “He was also heavily involved in St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church, teaching adult education courses on a variety of topics from Biblical literature to archaeology.”

Two personal memories.

I remember the answer Dan often gave to some official who wanted to know why he had asked a specific, pointed question. He didn’t pontificate on his right to that information under the Open Records Law, or the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press. Instead, Dan would display that sly raised-in-West-Virginia smile and say, “I’m a naturally curious guy.”

Second, when Dan’s first child, Zachary, was born, Dan was still working in the Sentinel’s Capitol bureau. But he insisted that raising Zachary would not diminish his intellectual pursuits. “I’m still going to read a book a week.”

A former Capitol reporter called Dan “the last of another age, where your work – not your social media profile – was your brand. Nobody knew what Dan ate for lunch or what concerts he’d been to.”

“Dan could be zealous in pursuing a story but exceptionally careful in bringing it forward,” the former Capitol reporter recalled. “I bet there were lots of [examples] where he didn’t do a story because the facts weren’t there.”

Dan, sorry that a granddaughter’s college graduation kept me from your funeral. I’ll ask folks who attended how you were remembered. Why? I guess you could say I’m a naturally curious guy.

Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at stevenscotwalters@gmail.com