Nieman Foundation: Walker, GOP Legislature Threaten Wisconsin's Tradition of Innovation

Magda Konieczna, has a piece out on Scott Walker and the GOP's political war against another of Wisconsin's cherished traditions, innovation at the great state of University of Wisconsin-Madison, for now directed at journalistic innovation.

Writes Konieczna:

The Wisconsin state legislature’s attempt last week to evict the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism from the campus on which it operates poses a threat to one hopeful model for the future of journalism, and suggests that a long history of journalistic innovation at American universities may be in trouble.

Walker has taken a lot of hits for being petty and vindictive in using the state budget as a tool for to punish what Walker believes is a politically incorrect institution.

The GOP's including items in the state budget forbidding the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism from using UW-Madison facilities looks like the start of a war against Wisconsin's great public university system, a stronghold of anti-Walker political sentiment.

The attack on the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism follows Walker's withdrawing the appointment of Joshua Inglett to the UW System Board of Regents after Walker found out Inglett signed a Recall Walker petition to show support for his mother who is a substitute teacher.

The new litmus test in Wisconsin among Republicans and the Tea Party is:  "did you sign or didn't you sign" the recall Walker petition; 930,000 people in Wisconsin did sign the recall, roughly one out of every nine out of Wisconsin's population of an estimated 5,726,398 people.

Incredibly, Walker now says wasn't involved in his decision to withdraw his nomination of Inglett.


"Again, I wasn't involved in that directly. In the interest of not pulling him through the details on this, we withdrew the nomination," Walker said.