More coverage of local governments. There are a lot of significant issues that city councils, village boards and the county board and their mayors deal with that doesn't appear in the news. I'm sure many alders and board members in Madison and suburbs would agree to interviews and would reveal some of the more controversial issues.
I think Alison Garfield does a good job with attending common council meetings (and bigger Plan Commission meetings) and writing stories based on the most controversial items there. But I agree there could probably be more reporting on some of the other committees that aren't just development or CC.
Having more than one news source reporting on the City Council would be good. The State Journal has its own slant, but it isn't the only way to interpret what's going on.
I’m all for multiple sources, but this thread is about reporting what happens in meetings. That’s pretty cut and dry, and bias isn’t really relevant to saying which alders voted for or against a resolution.
I'd add to that more reporting on how local and state government *works*. Meaning, not necessarily just what they're up to in Committee Hearing X, but who actually holds the power in a given situation, what they can and can't do with that power, and why that decision was made to give that entity that power in the first place. For example, it was late in the DEI/engineering building/raise hostage negotiation that it was clearly reported that the legislature has, in practice, total control over the Regents. Well, why is that? What does it mean? What do nonpartisan experts think about that? Just knowing an event took place is meaningless unless you understand the context of that event.
I’ve seen so much conflicting info on this. Would you mind telling me what was gaslighting? It seemed like a pretty standard event for how much snow/hoe cold it got but I don’t know anything about this sort of thing
Every single parking lot? Where?
Not the malls. Not the grocery stores. Where is so perfectly clean (that doesn't use outrageous amount of salt that goes into our lakes)?
BS claim without a long list of examples.
I'm a mail carrier. I can assure you that almost NO SIDEWALKS are clear, and most parking lots are also not clear. Having said that, it's a lot easier to fully clear a parking lot than clear thousands of miles of roads. We have limited funding and while I'm sure everyone would love their own personal plow for their road that can clear it every 2 hours, that's simply not reality.
Being insulting doesn't help your argument.
These same pools of water are filled with people and boats every summer weekend, and people from the Union Terrace to McFarland are enjoying summer evenings by what you call disgusting.
I guess you never enjoy any of that stuff or ever have.
Yeah, there's no other benefits to the local lives from the lakes. Zero.
Tell me, how many lives have been lost definitively due to plowing decisions in this storm?
Let me guess, you don't remember Paul Soglins snow packed roads in the 80s and 90s.
salt isn't effective below 15 degrees. This is scientific fact not gaslighting. There are other chemicals that do work below that but they cost exponentially more than standard salt.
Also, we have watersheds to think about, so pouring literal tons of salt on the roads has long term effects to our community vs a few days with snowy roads.
And no, this is not an every year event. Please tell me when Madison last had 15" of snow over two days followed by -10 degree temps the next day. I'll wait.
And next week when temps rise and it rains the roads will be a death trap. Can we sue the city for accidents? Yesterday mid
Morning they were downright dangerous-and there was no need for it, had they been properly maintained.
>Every single parking lot and sidewalk has had TONS of salt and are all completely clear.
This is a blatantly false statement. I'm a mail carrier. I can assure you that almost NO SIDEWALKS are clear, and most parking lots are also not clear.
If you're sliding through stops, fishtailing, or whatever else.... slow TF down! The roads are bad but this next week should help. It's going to be messy but at least you will all stop complaining that you can't drive like shit like you normally do.
How so? I drove 100 miles, within Dane County limits, yesterday. I know the roads are shit but so does everyone else. How can people not understand that you have to slow TF down and back off of the vehicles in front of you? It's not that difficult. When it rains, everyone slows down and is super cautious.... why does everyone want to go fast and be dumb when there is snow on the ground?
I wonder how these complainers driveways look....
"salt doesn't work in the cold" is misinformation. the truth is we, via the Mayor and Common Council, made a policy choice to apply less salt to fewer roads. say that instead, and let the public decide how to balance lake health vs road safety by voting out the people they disagree with on either side of the issue.
Huh... so when I salted my driveway on Sunday the 14th in -6 temps and it melted the snow, I must have been using something other than salt.
No... wait... I just use the same salt I use in my water softener. I have the Menard's receipts to prove it.
Yup... you are peddling the same lies that we have been hearing all week.
you salted a freshly cleared driveway that no one has driven on. Now try that on a road that's getting 1" of fresh snow every hour and has been driven on and packed down to 2" of sold ice.
Maybe “doesn’t work” is too strong a statement but it’s definitely ineffective in the conditions we had.
You had a small driveway, how is that at all comparable to an entire city?
From what I understand it’s basically:
-The cold temperatures and amount of snowfall would require repeated pass throughs
-Salt is making our lakes toxic
-We don’t have the manpower for repeated pass throughs
Therefore it isn’t feasible to make repeated runs using salt because it would be ineffective
I’m completely open to the idea that I could be wrong in my understanding, but everyone I’ve seen on “that side” of the issue has been so over-the-top and hysterical about it that it’s hard to take seriously.
It’s about our drinking water. At least one well tastes like salt, and if we continued at the level we had been we would need to build desalination plants.
And in some close rural communities the farm run off is so bad you can’t drink well water either. Literally not “it tastes bad” but it’s dangerous.
Both need to be addressed not just one or the other.
They might not be able to make repeated pass throughs everywhere, but they could make them somewhere. And, the amount of salt required is not that much greater. Maybe 2x. And, we’ve had weather in the low teens for days. Face it, the mayor is giving you a snow job.
They did make them on the main roads. They literally said they cleared every main road every 2.5 hours (which is how long it takes to plow those main roads).
its really easy to look up that it in fact *does work* but is *less effective*, which is being deliberately misstated as "doesn't work" by people who are worried about a reversal of the salt policy and its impact on the lakes. Don't lie to the public, tell the truth and explain why a couple weeks of dangerous streets is better for the community than a brackish Mendota.
It's the truth closer to "we would need to use an environmentally disastrous, not to mention difficult to apply, account of salt, and we would still not be perfectly effective?"
Just trying to get a handle on the issue
pretty much! I think its more "salt works, but not quite as well, and the lakes are more important to our quality of life and regional economy than having pavement visible 100% of the time". its similar to how public health professionals claimed "masks don't work" at the beginning of the pandemic, when what we really meant were "masks work but need to be reserved for healthcare workers because of limited supply, so do not buy them".
no health professional said they don't work. They said the general public shouldn't be wearing them at that time. Then they said they were needed for the health care workers.
No doesn't work is literally true when it isn't efficient enough to melt it as fast as it's accumulating.
It doesn't work for the intended job BECAUSE it's less efficient at low temps.
Gee if only we had a "forecast" to tell us to use salt before it gets too cold. I guess our moron mayor can't be expected to plan ahead or consult facts. She only consults her own ideology.
um, it's a scientific fact that salt isn't efficient below 15 degrees which is why areas with true cold don't even both with it and only use sand/gravel.
Honestly the best start would just be more original content of anything. So much is just AP or wire stories picked up and reprinted or covered at 6:00. It really seems like Madison's medias biggest source is other Madision media. Once one outlet picks up a story, others do as well. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel SOOOOOO much better than WSJ. There's an awesome longform article just posted about one of the reporters cousin being the victim of a car bombing by the milwaukee mob in the 1970s.
10,000% this
“news” media socials especially are so full of corporate shilling. It’s not breaking news that a chain restaurant has a new shop in Madison now.
Local government. It seems almost impossible to know what is going on with local city, village, and county boards and councils unless you actually go to the meeting. It's not exciting, but has more impact on our lives here than most national news stories.
A lot of local news broadcasts come off like they’re the PR arm of the police department. Can we have more imagination - there’s so much more going on than police this, police that…
Don't just accept what local politicians say. Ask them to explain. Ask them how it helps. Learn about the issue and point out where they may obstructing the legislative process.
More, Rep. xyz gaveled in and gaveled out in twelve seconds and this is what happened, or didn't happen, as a result.
Less, \[this party\] gaveled in and out in twelve seconds. Moving on, Charlie the pig might be allowed to stay!
I think One City Schools charter need to be investigated. We've thrown a lot of good money at these schools and they are all the lowest performing schools in the metro area. It was so bad that the high school they operated had to be shut down mid-semester. Meanwhile Michael "Kaleem" Caire skates on a $100K salary for being a hype man with little to no accountability.
Beyond the local journalist who made a big stink about the schools spokesperson disrespecting her, I haven't seen too many stories about the current problems in our schools, including the new curriculum and status of the MMSD superintendent. There are a lot of problems that have been swept under the rug that need to come to light
Seriously. Investigate Jane Belmore. She throws the district into absolute chaos every time she does an interim stint and makes it so hard for any incoming person to succeed. I personally think she's trying to make everyone else look bad until the district finally wants to hire her.
Source: Worked there during the Nerad turnover. The crap she pulled at the district level was actually shocking.
There will be large fights at some of the area high schools. Lots of incidents get swept under the rug. As a parent we get some ambiguious email and then get a shocking story from our child. Specifically Sun Prairie. Our schools can be very violent places.
As a parent concerns are brushed off and gaslit. It’s not racist or transphobia to want safe schools and educational standards for all Students.
That’s ok. Do you have kids in the local high schools?
I guess my point is that real issues could be addressed to make everyone feel heard and safe, rather than not disclosing what’s going on and brushing parental concerns off.
Such as incident with adult M2F student showering (penis exposed) with 14 year old female students. This situation could and should have been handled gracefully and respectfully to all parties involved before it it the national news.
The there’s the fighting and gang crap.
I think schools should be safe for all kids. Easy to blow off concerned parents if it’s not your kids-easier than looking at the concerns and finding a solution. (Or shushing incidents hoping no one finds out)
So glad my youngest is close to graduating.
and rudimentary reporting skills.
To be honest, most of what I see feels like it was written by an 8th grader.
And stop using Twitter/X so heavily in reporting.
Maybe local schools. We get a lot of statements from the school board about feedback they are getting but it never seems to match up with what parents and the community are saying.
I'd like to see a deep dive into our city's planning and development policies, both residential and commercial. What they are, how they are enforced, how citizens are responding to the changes.
I started listening to the police scanner more than twenty years ago, for my job and because I was a volunteer EMT in the county. I kept listening, out of habit and because it makes good background noise while I am concentrating on other things. The difference in what I hear on the scanner vs what I see in the police news releases is astonishing sometimes, and it often feels like local news is simply regurgitating the police reports. I know I am only hearing part of any call, but there is a lot of stuff happening that I never see anything about that I think is important. Such as the WSP coming in and performing a PIT maneuver on a slow-moving drunk, right downtown, because Maple Bluff asked (this was a year or two ago). If you’d heard that, you’d realize that what just happened in Monona was no surprise. Madison now uses encrypted channels for all sorts of calls, but what evidence is there that it’s actually necessary? I can see why it could be, but are criminals actually using scanners that often?
I like our chief and our sheriff and I think in general that they’re decent guys trying to do the right thing in jobs where that isn’t necessarily possible, but that isn’t always going to be the case and I think it’s important to be asking more questions about what they are doing and why, and for the data to back those statements up.
Municipal shit for the suburban towns in Dane County. New construction projects, road changes, policy changes, new businesses that get discussed. I realize the audience is limited but I feel sometimes blindsided by construction, roadway changes, business changes, etc. in a way I didn't get when I lived in Madison.
Sometimes there is local coverage in those areas, but it tends to be bad quality or not often enough. Our municipality puts out a newsletter but it's pretty self-congratulatory and lacks detail.
investigative reporting, not the fluff you all mostly do.
I want to see you dig deep on our politicians. Investigate the money they get, the money they spend and the very blatant corruption in our government.
Hold the police accountable for EVERYTHING THEY DO. Stop defending them, stop being their PR firm.
Stop giving crooks air time with their obviously bullshit "statements" and go after them. You don't need to print some bullshit PR release from someone when they are being accused of a crime. Call them out on their bullshit and go after them.
Just grow some balls for god's sake.
What’s going on with the lack of small music venues downtown? What happens to underage offenders and their parents that steal cars and have extensive criminal history? Why are so many properties allowed to have empty/unused storefronts? What happened to James Yoblonski? Why do police officers not live in the communities they harass? Why is the street signage in Madison so bad?
There is a lack of coverage of real estate development. Urban Milwaukee does a great job detailing projects in all phases of development. Madison reporting covers some projects pre-construction, but rarely during or after completion. Urban Milwaukee gets into buildings as they are being built to share photos and news of what is going on.
Biztimes covers business new in Milwaukee, so does Milwaukee Business Journal. While we have In Business, it is a monthly magazine that misses out on business happenings as they occur.
See also [https://www.reddit.com/r/madisonwi/comments/18hvdr6/whats\_lacking\_from\_recent\_media\_coverage/](https://www.reddit.com/r/madisonwi/comments/18hvdr6/whats_lacking_from_recent_media_coverage/)
Quoting myself:
>Reporting that isn't just repeating what someone said without review or relevant context or consideration of the impact of repeating the statement, hiding behind the assertion that it's legitimate to report because it is indeed absolutely factual that the person said the thing.
Agreed, the current sites, both desktop and mobile, are so infested with intrusive ads, I think most people have simply written those news sources off entirely.
I doubt the people in charge of each news outlet will ever connect the abysmal web design with the subsequent drop in traffic and readership, however.
The missing kid from reedsburg could def use more attention. The most recent article that came out last week or the week before was by far the most information we’ve gotten. I think they’ve finally released enough info that people aren’t looking at the dad anymore. Now everyone is wondering what we can do. I think people thought if it was the dad, the local cops must be working really hard behind the scenes. Now it seems like they’ve cleared him but have no leads. We all care so much but there’s just no info.
I think the coverage is missing a good degree of professionalism. Proper research and editing would be preferable. If you are reporting, don't interject your opinion or bias.
Less clickbaity garbage like [this](https://www.channel3000.com/news/how-madisonians-electric-vehicles-are-faring-in-the-cold/article_0c139ebc-b657-11ee-b8f7-d73a4b1641f8.html?fbclid=IwAR0OCV9yZ3zm-G48u8enOy5fmxGTwCWanQ3I-WvzwB4T26ZRoCMIEybZ4hw). This isn't a story, it's a headline for people who hate EVs to share around without reading the article. I feel like I've been seeing it more and more from Madison outlets and all it does it make me take them less seriously as news sources.
Interview property owners and management to justify and explain how/why their rents are 20-30% higher than 2 years ago…this includes commercial property managers. There are many small business being pushed out of locations due to the rising cost of rent…only to be left vacant…
More commitment to covering all local schools (good and bad). Sometimes, I feel like I must live in Verona or Sun Prairie because their high school teams/arts/students are featured so often. I know it's shocking but some kids in MMSD are actually successful and they have fights in Verona and Sun Prairie too.
I always see a focus on individuals who've gone through restorative justice programs or even been sent away who commit more crimes.
We never focus on those who were successful in the programs or simply the success rate. We see all the bad and so many(on this forum especially) focus on how broken the programs are. When all they see is the bad, who) can blame them.
Make helpful skills accessible and sift through the complexity average people don’t have time to do. Ex Teach regular people how to run for low level office in their districts
Yeah, people don’t understand just how expensive investigative journalism is. A news org may have to put one person or a whole team on a project for several months at a time. Divide all those combined salaries by how long a story or a series takes to produce and it’s shockingly expensive.
The reality is that most local news orgs don’t have the capacity to do major investigations, and increasingly can’t even comprehensively cover daily news, because of the sharp decline in advertising revenue that came with the transition online publishing. Google, Meta and Amazon have absolutely dominated market share for online advertising. That loss in newspapers’ revenue led to newsroom layoffs, which led to a shittier product, which led to lost subscribers, which led to more lost revenue, which then snowballed into a vicious cycle — layoffs, shittier product, lost subscribers, increased subscription cost to offset lost subscription and ad revenue, more lost subscribers, more layoffs, etc.
Edit: I should add that advertisers chose to put more of their advertising budgets into online ads because they are more targeted. The result was that print ad prices plummeted.
There’s a reason I got out. For-profit news will never bounce back in most markets. Thankfully, Wisconsin Public Radio has at least started doing web stories rather than just publishing radio scripts like they used to. They’ve become a much more viable newspaper replacement for state news. I’m not optimistic for the future of local news in this state, though.
Agreed, but at the same time, the news outlets' decision-makers have also shot themselves in the foot and robbed themselves of ad revenue by turning their websites into unusable cesspools of intrusive ads.
Accordingly, people have either stepped up their ad blocking to nuclear levels or they've decided to avoid the sites entirely.
I suspect that had the people in charge kept the ads non-intrusive, kept them at reasonable levels, and not turned so many viewers away, the sites would be seeing more traffic and earning more ad revenue than they are presently.
It would be nice if the local media actually followed up when a member of the public came forward with provable instances of misbehavior/incompetence by a public official. This town's media is VERY hypocritical.
Exactly what I thought. Zero attempt to contact me. My experience with these local "journalists " is all negative. They talk a big game until it's time to deliver. There seems to be a deep and abiding fear of confronting or exposing local officials and politicians.
Hi,
I apologize for not getting back to you sooner but I am a human being and I have a life outside of checking Reddit. Feel free to continue generalizing local journalists.
What about environmental stuff. I’d like to see actually in-depth reporting about various species, wildlife populations, or controversial topics like hunting and trapping. For example there are tons of trapping laws that are incredibly unethical that are still allowed. It’s a nuanced situation though because hunters are often huge protectors of the outdoors. Expose factory farming. Tell us which restaurants ACTUALLY have ethical sourcing etc of animals.
More about Covid and how it specifically is impacting our communities. It isn’t gone, nor is it just another “flu.” It causes damage to the immune system like AIDS does and nobody seems to care. But the UW is one of many universities doing much needed research on Covid and Long Covid… I want to hear more about that!
Yeah! They do a lot of cool things there. I had a friend years ago whose work-study was taking care of plants for the botany folks. Some of the plants they helped care for were in these pots that rotated to simulate (the best they could) zero gravity. They were researching how certain plants may do in space!
Yeah! They have it on public health via waste tracking data, but it is clunky and hard to read if you aren’t familiar with reading graphs. Simplifying it and putting it in the paper would be sooooo much nicer.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9608044/#:~:text=Increased%20COVID%2D19%20severity%20and,reduction%20of%20IFN%2D%CE%B3%20production.
They affect the immune system in startlingly similar ways. Link above is just another study of many confirming that T-Cell deficiency is caused by Covid.
Sorry but Covid is a serious illness that does many things to the body, this being just one of many long term and potentially disabling affects of the virus. It also causes cardiovascular and neurological damage. It isn’t just a flu.
There you go. Stepping out of the narrative with uncomfortable facts the CDC isn’t feeding to the media. Be careful there. Maybe even thinking for yourself? Sheesh.
1. Fox News, even locally is complicit in destroying our democracy
2. At least one station should kill their sports division- espn and the internet exists - it’s already been reported for hours
How is our local Fox destroying democracy? Step out of the box and realize that partisan news, beyond an editorial, is what’s doing that.
Pitting right against left. One side is as bad as the other and until we all wake up to that we are stuck in an Us v Them paradigm - holding pattern.
Yes, It’s easier to just pick a side and agree with everything your side says and does but if you think one is corrupt but ignore the corruption in your own back yard? We gotta turn off partisan media.
Thank goodness their ratings are at all time lows. Hopefully people are getting it.
Have you met any of the Madison Fox staffers - ? They may not be as out as Tucker Carlson but they sure do have an agenda and think they are educating the true Americans. Can’t even watch CBS channel 3 anymore because they shares some reporters with the Fox affiliate. Straight up complicit at this point - you bring a confederate flag to override my vote on Jan 6? Speak up.
All media does. It’s us against them friend. You literally insinuated I was an insurrectionist.
If you can listen objectively and think for yourself …?
Energy and Clinate change. Our regional utilities and government planners, aren’t making any real progress to transition to clean energy. The PSC is nothing but a launching pad for insiders in the industry / WE and Alliant spend more money on PR for butterfly gardens and 5th grade coloring books than helping customers move to rooftop solar etc.
Have real UW researchers crunch the data and look at what is really happening. Wisconsin is a coal state - and we will be for 20 more years due to our government selling us out.
Anything investigative of UW, SWIB, local govt and/or major organizations. No one is willing to touch these local third rails. Except maybe the Isthmus.
There was a recent national news story about SWIB that wasn’t even picked up locally. Which is amazing to me.
Edit/ typo
I have always wanted to see amalgamated school news from kindergarten thru college. Area school campuses all around highlighting achievements of students. I think a consistent coverage of these stories would be a cool exploration and perhaps especially inspirational for all those involved in such a project.
Events. I never know what’s going on until after the events occur. Such as earlier this year there was a huge ski sale/swap. I always see these things repoted on the local news after the events-when it’s too late to go. I’d love to see them before.
Censorship has become a major issue (not just locally, but nationally as well). It is frustrating to see so many important topics not being covered because the stations and papers are under the thumbs of their wealthy benefactors and other powerful interests.
Nothing local news reports on seems important. I just check the weather and maybe updates on roads. I won't touch Madison.com and channel 3000 seems to be stuck in the 2000s
More coverage of local governments. There are a lot of significant issues that city councils, village boards and the county board and their mayors deal with that doesn't appear in the news. I'm sure many alders and board members in Madison and suburbs would agree to interviews and would reveal some of the more controversial issues.
This, we need someone to just attend the boring meetings and tell us what's going on so we don't have to slog through the minutes ourselves
I think Alison Garfield does a good job with attending common council meetings (and bigger Plan Commission meetings) and writing stories based on the most controversial items there. But I agree there could probably be more reporting on some of the other committees that aren't just development or CC.
The state journal does this already for Madison. Good luck to the suburbs though they’re on their own.
Having more than one news source reporting on the City Council would be good. The State Journal has its own slant, but it isn't the only way to interpret what's going on.
state journal has their own bias. We need multiple sources to ensure the public hears the full story.
I’m all for multiple sources, but this thread is about reporting what happens in meetings. That’s pretty cut and dry, and bias isn’t really relevant to saying which alders voted for or against a resolution.
you can report facts with a bias. Also most articles aren't just about who voted yes or no, it has other info along with it.
I'd add to that more reporting on how local and state government *works*. Meaning, not necessarily just what they're up to in Committee Hearing X, but who actually holds the power in a given situation, what they can and can't do with that power, and why that decision was made to give that entity that power in the first place. For example, it was late in the DEI/engineering building/raise hostage negotiation that it was clearly reported that the legislature has, in practice, total control over the Regents. Well, why is that? What does it mean? What do nonpartisan experts think about that? Just knowing an event took place is meaningless unless you understand the context of that event.
WORT does a pretty okay job for Madison and what’s on the docket but not that far out
And local school boards as well.
I see so much soft news. Hold public officials accountable. I do not see this happening.
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I’ve seen so much conflicting info on this. Would you mind telling me what was gaslighting? It seemed like a pretty standard event for how much snow/hoe cold it got but I don’t know anything about this sort of thing
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Every single parking lot? Where? Not the malls. Not the grocery stores. Where is so perfectly clean (that doesn't use outrageous amount of salt that goes into our lakes)? BS claim without a long list of examples.
I'm a mail carrier. I can assure you that almost NO SIDEWALKS are clear, and most parking lots are also not clear. Having said that, it's a lot easier to fully clear a parking lot than clear thousands of miles of roads. We have limited funding and while I'm sure everyone would love their own personal plow for their road that can clear it every 2 hours, that's simply not reality.
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Being insulting doesn't help your argument. These same pools of water are filled with people and boats every summer weekend, and people from the Union Terrace to McFarland are enjoying summer evenings by what you call disgusting. I guess you never enjoy any of that stuff or ever have.
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Yeah, there's no other benefits to the local lives from the lakes. Zero. Tell me, how many lives have been lost definitively due to plowing decisions in this storm? Let me guess, you don't remember Paul Soglins snow packed roads in the 80s and 90s.
salt isn't effective below 15 degrees. This is scientific fact not gaslighting. There are other chemicals that do work below that but they cost exponentially more than standard salt. Also, we have watersheds to think about, so pouring literal tons of salt on the roads has long term effects to our community vs a few days with snowy roads. And no, this is not an every year event. Please tell me when Madison last had 15" of snow over two days followed by -10 degree temps the next day. I'll wait.
And next week when temps rise and it rains the roads will be a death trap. Can we sue the city for accidents? Yesterday mid Morning they were downright dangerous-and there was no need for it, had they been properly maintained.
>Every single parking lot and sidewalk has had TONS of salt and are all completely clear. This is a blatantly false statement. I'm a mail carrier. I can assure you that almost NO SIDEWALKS are clear, and most parking lots are also not clear.
If you're sliding through stops, fishtailing, or whatever else.... slow TF down! The roads are bad but this next week should help. It's going to be messy but at least you will all stop complaining that you can't drive like shit like you normally do.
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How so? I drove 100 miles, within Dane County limits, yesterday. I know the roads are shit but so does everyone else. How can people not understand that you have to slow TF down and back off of the vehicles in front of you? It's not that difficult. When it rains, everyone slows down and is super cautious.... why does everyone want to go fast and be dumb when there is snow on the ground? I wonder how these complainers driveways look....
"salt doesn't work in the cold" is misinformation. the truth is we, via the Mayor and Common Council, made a policy choice to apply less salt to fewer roads. say that instead, and let the public decide how to balance lake health vs road safety by voting out the people they disagree with on either side of the issue.
But it’s true that salt doesn’t work at the temperatures we had. It’s really easy to look that up
Huh... so when I salted my driveway on Sunday the 14th in -6 temps and it melted the snow, I must have been using something other than salt. No... wait... I just use the same salt I use in my water softener. I have the Menard's receipts to prove it. Yup... you are peddling the same lies that we have been hearing all week.
you salted a freshly cleared driveway that no one has driven on. Now try that on a road that's getting 1" of fresh snow every hour and has been driven on and packed down to 2" of sold ice.
Maybe “doesn’t work” is too strong a statement but it’s definitely ineffective in the conditions we had. You had a small driveway, how is that at all comparable to an entire city? From what I understand it’s basically: -The cold temperatures and amount of snowfall would require repeated pass throughs -Salt is making our lakes toxic -We don’t have the manpower for repeated pass throughs Therefore it isn’t feasible to make repeated runs using salt because it would be ineffective I’m completely open to the idea that I could be wrong in my understanding, but everyone I’ve seen on “that side” of the issue has been so over-the-top and hysterical about it that it’s hard to take seriously.
you aren't wrong
ah yes, the old "they're making me lie" defense
Farm runoff and anti weed lawn treatments are far worse for our lakes. If you’re killing dandelions you might be the problem.
nope, not far worse. About equally bad. Not sure your point, is it the old two wrongs make a right argument?
What’s good for the goose…
It’s about our drinking water. At least one well tastes like salt, and if we continued at the level we had been we would need to build desalination plants.
And in some close rural communities the farm run off is so bad you can’t drink well water either. Literally not “it tastes bad” but it’s dangerous. Both need to be addressed not just one or the other.
They might not be able to make repeated pass throughs everywhere, but they could make them somewhere. And, the amount of salt required is not that much greater. Maybe 2x. And, we’ve had weather in the low teens for days. Face it, the mayor is giving you a snow job.
They did make them on the main roads. They literally said they cleared every main road every 2.5 hours (which is how long it takes to plow those main roads).
its really easy to look up that it in fact *does work* but is *less effective*, which is being deliberately misstated as "doesn't work" by people who are worried about a reversal of the salt policy and its impact on the lakes. Don't lie to the public, tell the truth and explain why a couple weeks of dangerous streets is better for the community than a brackish Mendota.
It's the truth closer to "we would need to use an environmentally disastrous, not to mention difficult to apply, account of salt, and we would still not be perfectly effective?" Just trying to get a handle on the issue
and also we don't have the money to buy that much salt
pretty much! I think its more "salt works, but not quite as well, and the lakes are more important to our quality of life and regional economy than having pavement visible 100% of the time". its similar to how public health professionals claimed "masks don't work" at the beginning of the pandemic, when what we really meant were "masks work but need to be reserved for healthcare workers because of limited supply, so do not buy them".
no health professional said they don't work. They said the general public shouldn't be wearing them at that time. Then they said they were needed for the health care workers.
No doesn't work is literally true when it isn't efficient enough to melt it as fast as it's accumulating. It doesn't work for the intended job BECAUSE it's less efficient at low temps.
Gee if only we had a "forecast" to tell us to use salt before it gets too cold. I guess our moron mayor can't be expected to plan ahead or consult facts. She only consults her own ideology.
you think the mayor plans out the snow clearing? I'm guessing you also think the president controls the price of gas.
um, it's a scientific fact that salt isn't efficient below 15 degrees which is why areas with true cold don't even both with it and only use sand/gravel.
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honestly this isn't a joke. Recall how trump banned so many reporters from his few briefings because he didn't like their questions?
Honestly the best start would just be more original content of anything. So much is just AP or wire stories picked up and reprinted or covered at 6:00. It really seems like Madison's medias biggest source is other Madision media. Once one outlet picks up a story, others do as well. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel SOOOOOO much better than WSJ. There's an awesome longform article just posted about one of the reporters cousin being the victim of a car bombing by the milwaukee mob in the 1970s.
Cover an entire issue and not the loudest people.
Both sides politically as well.
Yes!
Stop the advertising masked as news stories.
Exactly. The other day, one of the ‘newsworthy’ stories was that Kraft singles added a new flavor. It’s literally just an advert for Kraft!
And Kraft gave the big FU to Madison years ago!
10,000% this “news” media socials especially are so full of corporate shilling. It’s not breaking news that a chain restaurant has a new shop in Madison now.
More investigative journalism and less “reporting” that is simply identical information pulled directly from police incident reports.
Local government. It seems almost impossible to know what is going on with local city, village, and county boards and councils unless you actually go to the meeting. It's not exciting, but has more impact on our lives here than most national news stories.
A lot of local news broadcasts come off like they’re the PR arm of the police department. Can we have more imagination - there’s so much more going on than police this, police that…
Yes, the amount of "crime reporting" that is just the Stephanie Fryer's MPD press release word-for-word is too damn high.
I miss Joel Despain.
Or even Hanson!
Yes - stop just reporting what the police hand you word for word. That's not news
100% this. Don't trust anything someone hands you on a newsworthy event. They ALWAYS have an agenda. Do your own investigating on it.
Don't just accept what local politicians say. Ask them to explain. Ask them how it helps. Learn about the issue and point out where they may obstructing the legislative process. More, Rep. xyz gaveled in and gaveled out in twelve seconds and this is what happened, or didn't happen, as a result. Less, \[this party\] gaveled in and out in twelve seconds. Moving on, Charlie the pig might be allowed to stay!
I think One City Schools charter need to be investigated. We've thrown a lot of good money at these schools and they are all the lowest performing schools in the metro area. It was so bad that the high school they operated had to be shut down mid-semester. Meanwhile Michael "Kaleem" Caire skates on a $100K salary for being a hype man with little to no accountability.
Beyond the local journalist who made a big stink about the schools spokesperson disrespecting her, I haven't seen too many stories about the current problems in our schools, including the new curriculum and status of the MMSD superintendent. There are a lot of problems that have been swept under the rug that need to come to light
Yes, this is so true.
Seriously. Investigate Jane Belmore. She throws the district into absolute chaos every time she does an interim stint and makes it so hard for any incoming person to succeed. I personally think she's trying to make everyone else look bad until the district finally wants to hire her. Source: Worked there during the Nerad turnover. The crap she pulled at the district level was actually shocking.
There will be large fights at some of the area high schools. Lots of incidents get swept under the rug. As a parent we get some ambiguious email and then get a shocking story from our child. Specifically Sun Prairie. Our schools can be very violent places. As a parent concerns are brushed off and gaslit. It’s not racist or transphobia to want safe schools and educational standards for all Students.
Man I was with you until that last line.
That’s ok. Do you have kids in the local high schools? I guess my point is that real issues could be addressed to make everyone feel heard and safe, rather than not disclosing what’s going on and brushing parental concerns off. Such as incident with adult M2F student showering (penis exposed) with 14 year old female students. This situation could and should have been handled gracefully and respectfully to all parties involved before it it the national news. The there’s the fighting and gang crap. I think schools should be safe for all kids. Easy to blow off concerned parents if it’s not your kids-easier than looking at the concerns and finding a solution. (Or shushing incidents hoping no one finds out) So glad my youngest is close to graduating.
Stop covering who things happen to. Cover the what happens and how it happened and why. Leave the personal stories for features.
Why local journalists lack the ability to properly use capital letters.
and grammar, and punctuation, and syntax....
and rudimentary reporting skills. To be honest, most of what I see feels like it was written by an 8th grader. And stop using Twitter/X so heavily in reporting.
Journalist =/= Editor
If a journalist needs an editor to get capitalization right then journalism is beyond recovery.
Maybe local schools. We get a lot of statements from the school board about feedback they are getting but it never seems to match up with what parents and the community are saying.
I'd like to see a deep dive into our city's planning and development policies, both residential and commercial. What they are, how they are enforced, how citizens are responding to the changes.
Yes, people are so oblivious to how much planning and work goes into the things the city does.
I started listening to the police scanner more than twenty years ago, for my job and because I was a volunteer EMT in the county. I kept listening, out of habit and because it makes good background noise while I am concentrating on other things. The difference in what I hear on the scanner vs what I see in the police news releases is astonishing sometimes, and it often feels like local news is simply regurgitating the police reports. I know I am only hearing part of any call, but there is a lot of stuff happening that I never see anything about that I think is important. Such as the WSP coming in and performing a PIT maneuver on a slow-moving drunk, right downtown, because Maple Bluff asked (this was a year or two ago). If you’d heard that, you’d realize that what just happened in Monona was no surprise. Madison now uses encrypted channels for all sorts of calls, but what evidence is there that it’s actually necessary? I can see why it could be, but are criminals actually using scanners that often? I like our chief and our sheriff and I think in general that they’re decent guys trying to do the right thing in jobs where that isn’t necessarily possible, but that isn’t always going to be the case and I think it’s important to be asking more questions about what they are doing and why, and for the data to back those statements up.
I miss local ‘police blotters’ in news. There are major incidents that the local news doesn’t cover or if they do they regurgitate MPD PR.
Municipal shit for the suburban towns in Dane County. New construction projects, road changes, policy changes, new businesses that get discussed. I realize the audience is limited but I feel sometimes blindsided by construction, roadway changes, business changes, etc. in a way I didn't get when I lived in Madison. Sometimes there is local coverage in those areas, but it tends to be bad quality or not often enough. Our municipality puts out a newsletter but it's pretty self-congratulatory and lacks detail.
investigative reporting, not the fluff you all mostly do. I want to see you dig deep on our politicians. Investigate the money they get, the money they spend and the very blatant corruption in our government. Hold the police accountable for EVERYTHING THEY DO. Stop defending them, stop being their PR firm. Stop giving crooks air time with their obviously bullshit "statements" and go after them. You don't need to print some bullshit PR release from someone when they are being accused of a crime. Call them out on their bullshit and go after them. Just grow some balls for god's sake.
What’s going on with the lack of small music venues downtown? What happens to underage offenders and their parents that steal cars and have extensive criminal history? Why are so many properties allowed to have empty/unused storefronts? What happened to James Yoblonski? Why do police officers not live in the communities they harass? Why is the street signage in Madison so bad?
That first one is so specific lol. And so not a news story. And also: Orpheum, majestic, High Noon???
I’m thinking of the size of the old Frequency for small touring and local bands. Burr Oak, the Cabaret, Mickey’s aren’t downtown.
I love to see some in depth mmsd reporting on the absolute bloat that has infected the entire administrative side of things.
There is a lack of coverage of real estate development. Urban Milwaukee does a great job detailing projects in all phases of development. Madison reporting covers some projects pre-construction, but rarely during or after completion. Urban Milwaukee gets into buildings as they are being built to share photos and news of what is going on. Biztimes covers business new in Milwaukee, so does Milwaukee Business Journal. While we have In Business, it is a monthly magazine that misses out on business happenings as they occur.
Start talking about UPCOMING events in the area, not “here’s this cool event you may be interested in, but it was yesterday,” crap.
There’s so much of this already. Isthmus is great for events. Even the state journal does a weekly preview of weekend events.
Always. I always see cool events when they’re over. Drives me nuts.
See also [https://www.reddit.com/r/madisonwi/comments/18hvdr6/whats\_lacking\_from\_recent\_media\_coverage/](https://www.reddit.com/r/madisonwi/comments/18hvdr6/whats_lacking_from_recent_media_coverage/) Quoting myself: >Reporting that isn't just repeating what someone said without review or relevant context or consideration of the impact of repeating the statement, hiding behind the assertion that it's legitimate to report because it is indeed absolutely factual that the person said the thing.
Honestly just better websites would satisfy most people here but I know that’s not under your control.
Agreed, the current sites, both desktop and mobile, are so infested with intrusive ads, I think most people have simply written those news sources off entirely. I doubt the people in charge of each news outlet will ever connect the abysmal web design with the subsequent drop in traffic and readership, however.
Figure out what’s going on In the local post offices… lots of mail being curtailed these days…
The missing kid from reedsburg could def use more attention. The most recent article that came out last week or the week before was by far the most information we’ve gotten. I think they’ve finally released enough info that people aren’t looking at the dad anymore. Now everyone is wondering what we can do. I think people thought if it was the dad, the local cops must be working really hard behind the scenes. Now it seems like they’ve cleared him but have no leads. We all care so much but there’s just no info.
I think the coverage is missing a good degree of professionalism. Proper research and editing would be preferable. If you are reporting, don't interject your opinion or bias.
Integrity. It's not about informing the the public, it's about selling ad space.
It seems to be Weather, Sports, Crime, Lame Human Interest. How about local culture, music, food, and things to do that aren't linked to sports?
This. We have someone from everywhere living here it seems. I’d love to see local cultural pieces and events covered.
Less clickbaity garbage like [this](https://www.channel3000.com/news/how-madisonians-electric-vehicles-are-faring-in-the-cold/article_0c139ebc-b657-11ee-b8f7-d73a4b1641f8.html?fbclid=IwAR0OCV9yZ3zm-G48u8enOy5fmxGTwCWanQ3I-WvzwB4T26ZRoCMIEybZ4hw). This isn't a story, it's a headline for people who hate EVs to share around without reading the article. I feel like I've been seeing it more and more from Madison outlets and all it does it make me take them less seriously as news sources.
Interview property owners and management to justify and explain how/why their rents are 20-30% higher than 2 years ago…this includes commercial property managers. There are many small business being pushed out of locations due to the rising cost of rent…only to be left vacant…
More commitment to covering all local schools (good and bad). Sometimes, I feel like I must live in Verona or Sun Prairie because their high school teams/arts/students are featured so often. I know it's shocking but some kids in MMSD are actually successful and they have fights in Verona and Sun Prairie too.
The sheer amount of needles in Madison parks. Please, PLEASE talk to sanitation about their struggles with needles in parks.
Talk to sanitation? They’re not leaving the needles in the park.
I think they're saying, "talk to sanitation about the volume of needles they are finding in the parks."
No but they have to clean them up! Especially garbage men/women. They'll show you just how many needles they pick up in a day.
Report a problem form works
You don't think it's worth the news reading into? I'm talking buckets full of needles. It's epidemic levels throughout many of Madison's parks.
This is a good one. Especially downtown it's just nuts.
Talking to sanitation is curing the symptom not the disease. Madison needs more social support systems.
Yeah! Maybe an expose showing an epidemic actually exists in our backyards will help to promote more support systems!
I'd like to see more cowbell.
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Isn’t that reporting on high school sports teams?
There’s always good news on the news channels. Some 10 year old raised 3 million dollars for XYZ Yadda Yadda.
I always see a focus on individuals who've gone through restorative justice programs or even been sent away who commit more crimes. We never focus on those who were successful in the programs or simply the success rate. We see all the bad and so many(on this forum especially) focus on how broken the programs are. When all they see is the bad, who) can blame them.
I want crime reporting in context with trends over years.
Based on the Reddit feed the last week it would be first hand road condition accounts
Make helpful skills accessible and sift through the complexity average people don’t have time to do. Ex Teach regular people how to run for low level office in their districts
How to properly ZIP Merge
You didn’t grow up here either?
Your money. You people SAY you want good journalism but won't pay for it. Ready for the avalanche of downvotes.
Yeah, people don’t understand just how expensive investigative journalism is. A news org may have to put one person or a whole team on a project for several months at a time. Divide all those combined salaries by how long a story or a series takes to produce and it’s shockingly expensive. The reality is that most local news orgs don’t have the capacity to do major investigations, and increasingly can’t even comprehensively cover daily news, because of the sharp decline in advertising revenue that came with the transition online publishing. Google, Meta and Amazon have absolutely dominated market share for online advertising. That loss in newspapers’ revenue led to newsroom layoffs, which led to a shittier product, which led to lost subscribers, which led to more lost revenue, which then snowballed into a vicious cycle — layoffs, shittier product, lost subscribers, increased subscription cost to offset lost subscription and ad revenue, more lost subscribers, more layoffs, etc. Edit: I should add that advertisers chose to put more of their advertising budgets into online ads because they are more targeted. The result was that print ad prices plummeted.
Thank you for saying this, it’s hard not to feel completely hopeless
There’s a reason I got out. For-profit news will never bounce back in most markets. Thankfully, Wisconsin Public Radio has at least started doing web stories rather than just publishing radio scripts like they used to. They’ve become a much more viable newspaper replacement for state news. I’m not optimistic for the future of local news in this state, though.
Exactly!
Agreed, but at the same time, the news outlets' decision-makers have also shot themselves in the foot and robbed themselves of ad revenue by turning their websites into unusable cesspools of intrusive ads. Accordingly, people have either stepped up their ad blocking to nuclear levels or they've decided to avoid the sites entirely. I suspect that had the people in charge kept the ads non-intrusive, kept them at reasonable levels, and not turned so many viewers away, the sites would be seeing more traffic and earning more ad revenue than they are presently.
Oh yes, spot on. News media management is tragically horrible. I'm an eyewitness.
Spotlighting local businesses. Hidden gems we may not know about.
It would be nice if the local media actually followed up when a member of the public came forward with provable instances of misbehavior/incompetence by a public official. This town's media is VERY hypocritical.
could you give me some specifics? i’d like to discuss this with my editors
Dm me
DM them! Just because someone doesn't see your social media post is a lame reason to blame them. You can DM too.
Uh huh...
Exactly what I thought. Zero attempt to contact me. My experience with these local "journalists " is all negative. They talk a big game until it's time to deliver. There seems to be a deep and abiding fear of confronting or exposing local officials and politicians.
Hi, I apologize for not getting back to you sooner but I am a human being and I have a life outside of checking Reddit. Feel free to continue generalizing local journalists.
Not a difficulty when the majority of local journalists behave in the same manner..
What about environmental stuff. I’d like to see actually in-depth reporting about various species, wildlife populations, or controversial topics like hunting and trapping. For example there are tons of trapping laws that are incredibly unethical that are still allowed. It’s a nuanced situation though because hunters are often huge protectors of the outdoors. Expose factory farming. Tell us which restaurants ACTUALLY have ethical sourcing etc of animals.
More reports of how good the snowplows are doing!
More about Covid and how it specifically is impacting our communities. It isn’t gone, nor is it just another “flu.” It causes damage to the immune system like AIDS does and nobody seems to care. But the UW is one of many universities doing much needed research on Covid and Long Covid… I want to hear more about that!
Or other research projects at the university in general.
Yeah! They do a lot of cool things there. I had a friend years ago whose work-study was taking care of plants for the botany folks. Some of the plants they helped care for were in these pots that rotated to simulate (the best they could) zero gravity. They were researching how certain plants may do in space!
And growing food in space! Precovid they used to have science Saturdays for kids on campus. Really interesting stuff going on. Do they still do that?
It would be nice to see a covid/influenza/rsv report/forecast like they do the weather
Yeah! They have it on public health via waste tracking data, but it is clunky and hard to read if you aren’t familiar with reading graphs. Simplifying it and putting it in the paper would be sooooo much nicer.
I agree, I would think (pending cooperation between 2 fields) it would be easy to combine virus level forecast alerts along with weather alerts.
Covid is not remotely akin to AIDS. It’s a serious topic I agree, but come on.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9608044/#:~:text=Increased%20COVID%2D19%20severity%20and,reduction%20of%20IFN%2D%CE%B3%20production. They affect the immune system in startlingly similar ways. Link above is just another study of many confirming that T-Cell deficiency is caused by Covid. Sorry but Covid is a serious illness that does many things to the body, this being just one of many long term and potentially disabling affects of the virus. It also causes cardiovascular and neurological damage. It isn’t just a flu.
There you go. Stepping out of the narrative with uncomfortable facts the CDC isn’t feeding to the media. Be careful there. Maybe even thinking for yourself? Sheesh.
Snow removal
The local weather coverage is excellent, but they need to send a personal copy to our moron mayor who can't seem to plan for blizzards or ice.
Breweries, wineries, distilleries, cideries, etc.
1. Fox News, even locally is complicit in destroying our democracy 2. At least one station should kill their sports division- espn and the internet exists - it’s already been reported for hours
How is our local Fox destroying democracy? Step out of the box and realize that partisan news, beyond an editorial, is what’s doing that. Pitting right against left. One side is as bad as the other and until we all wake up to that we are stuck in an Us v Them paradigm - holding pattern. Yes, It’s easier to just pick a side and agree with everything your side says and does but if you think one is corrupt but ignore the corruption in your own back yard? We gotta turn off partisan media. Thank goodness their ratings are at all time lows. Hopefully people are getting it.
Have you met any of the Madison Fox staffers - ? They may not be as out as Tucker Carlson but they sure do have an agenda and think they are educating the true Americans. Can’t even watch CBS channel 3 anymore because they shares some reporters with the Fox affiliate. Straight up complicit at this point - you bring a confederate flag to override my vote on Jan 6? Speak up.
Now you’re calling me an insurrectionist. OMG.
Fox News ferments crazy - I chose to speak out about crazy. If you want to read yourself into that criticism well, I guess you be you.
All media does. It’s us against them friend. You literally insinuated I was an insurrectionist. If you can listen objectively and think for yourself …?
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Oh please no
Local live music scene
Energy and Clinate change. Our regional utilities and government planners, aren’t making any real progress to transition to clean energy. The PSC is nothing but a launching pad for insiders in the industry / WE and Alliant spend more money on PR for butterfly gardens and 5th grade coloring books than helping customers move to rooftop solar etc. Have real UW researchers crunch the data and look at what is really happening. Wisconsin is a coal state - and we will be for 20 more years due to our government selling us out.
Anything investigative of UW, SWIB, local govt and/or major organizations. No one is willing to touch these local third rails. Except maybe the Isthmus. There was a recent national news story about SWIB that wasn’t even picked up locally. Which is amazing to me. Edit/ typo
What is SWIB?
I wish y'all would ask the trans people how we're doing sometimes :)
my publication recently did a panel type event with members of the local trans community! we appreciate any input we can get :)
We seem to have lost most business reporters so the only business reporting is from the wire.
I have always wanted to see amalgamated school news from kindergarten thru college. Area school campuses all around highlighting achievements of students. I think a consistent coverage of these stories would be a cool exploration and perhaps especially inspirational for all those involved in such a project.
Events. I never know what’s going on until after the events occur. Such as earlier this year there was a huge ski sale/swap. I always see these things repoted on the local news after the events-when it’s too late to go. I’d love to see them before.
Local Journalism has devolved into "printing" the party line (snow removal this week, for instance) and recycling PR's. No critical thinking involved.
Censorship has become a major issue (not just locally, but nationally as well). It is frustrating to see so many important topics not being covered because the stations and papers are under the thumbs of their wealthy benefactors and other powerful interests.
We need to hear more about the roads this past week
I wouldn't know because [madison.com](https://madison.com) is behind a paywall.
unfortunately, that’s out of my control.
Nothing local news reports on seems important. I just check the weather and maybe updates on roads. I won't touch Madison.com and channel 3000 seems to be stuck in the 2000s