Wisconsin

Cleo Krejci

Cleo Krejci covers workforce development and manufacturing in Wisconsin for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She developed her love for accountability reporting after uncovering dangerous building code violations at a student housing complex as a sophomore at the University of Minnesota. She continued working for her student paper, the Minnesota Daily, until graduation in May 2020, including as editor-in-chief of the 70-person newsroom during senior year. That summer Krejci left her hometown of Minneapolis to spend 10 weeks covering national politics for the Arizona Republic via the Pulliam Journalism Fellowship. From Arizona she moved to Iowa, where she spent two years covering K-12 and higher education for the Iowa City Press-Citizen and Des Moines Register. In summer 2022 she got a full-time job as an unskilled caregiver in a memory care unit, trusting it would serve as fodder for a later project about U.S. elder care.

Meredith Melland

Meredith Melland is the community engagement and neighborhoods reporter for Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. Before returning to her home state and joining the newsroom, she covered COVID-19 and other topics, edited stories and managed the website and social media of the Daily Journal in Kankakee, Illinois as the newspaper’s digital content editor. During her college years interning in Chicago, Melland fact-checked articles in Chicago magazine, wrote digital stories at WGN and did a bit of everything as an editorial intern at StreetWise. Melland holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from DePaul University, where she developed a keen interest in local community journalism. While on staff as a web developer and editor at 14 East, DePaul's online student magazine, she reported multimedia stories and earned an SPJ Region 5 Mark of Excellence Award with reporter Marin Scott for in-depth reporting on a professor of color’s termination and attempt to gain tenure at DePaul. Melland got her first taste of reporting and newsroom bonding at her high school’s publication, The Norse Star.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is the product of the 1995 merger of the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel, newspapers that date to 1882 and 1837, respectively. After two transitions, we are part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, which includes 10 other newsrooms in Wisconsin and 109 newsrooms nationwide. While we regularly do stories with national interest and impact, our focus is fiercely local. We cover Milwaukee, southeastern Wisconsin and the state like no one else does—or can. We are most proud of the day-to-day reporting that chronicles our community, informs our residents and holds officials accountable for what they do. We expose wrongdoing. We highlight programs that work. We engage the community. We help lead the search for solutions.

Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service

The Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service provides professional reporting to the city's Black and Brown communities. We priorities people over profit and seek to celebrate the resilience of ordinary residents who do extraordinary things; educate the community by connecting them to resources they need; and illuminate on issues of importance through our reporting. We inform. We transform.

Bennet Goldstein

Bennet Goldstein reports on water and agriculture as Wisconsin Watch’s Report for America representative on the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk—a collaborative reporting network across the Basin. Before this, Goldstein was on the breaking news team at the Omaha World Herald in Nebraska. He has spent most of his career at daily papers in Iowa, including the Dubuque Telegraph Herald. Goldstein’s work has garnered awards, including the Associated Press Media Editors award for an explanatory feature about a police shooting in rural Wisconsin, and an Iowa Newspaper Association award for a series that detailed the impacts of the loss of social safety net programs on Dubuque’s Marshallese community. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Caitlin Looby

Caitlin Looby covers the Great Lakes for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Previously, her work appeared in GQ Magazine, The New York Times, Mongabay and on Southern California Public Radio. As a freelancer, she’s also edited books, dissertations, poetry collections and even restaurant menus. A former scientist, Looby spent 12 years hiking through tropical cloud forests to study soil microbes and climate change. She holds a master’s degree from Kean University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine. In her free time, Looby heads outdoors, paddling, hiking, camping and playing with her two dogs. Fun fact: she’s lived in every time zone in the continental U.S.

Danielle Duclos

Danielle DuClos reports on K-12 education in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for the Green Bay Press- Gazette, part of the USA Today Network. Prior to joining the Press-Gazette, DuClos reported for ABC News, The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and the Anchorage Daily News. A recent graduate of the University of Missouri, where she was a state government reporter for the Columbia Missourian, the university’s community paper, DuClos holds a bachelor’s degree in investigative reporting and pre-law political science. She is passionate about the law and has interned for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Raised in Anchorage, Alaska, DuClos was a senior producer of “Podcast in Place,” a youth-run podcast that chronicled the impact of COVID-19 on Alaskan communities, and loves to spend time in the mountains and on the water.

Harm Venhuizen

Harm Venhuizen is a state government reporter with The Associated Press in Madison, Wisconsin, primarily covering elections and voting rights. Prior to this, Venhuizen interned at Military Times. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he served as editor-in-chief of Chimes, the student paper. During his time at Chimes, he earned recognition for his investigative coverage of controversial personnel decisions, sexual assault and university employment policies against same-sex marriage. Venhuizen grew up on a small farm in rural Wisconsin, and spent a summer working as a wildfire firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service. His hobbies include mountain biking, combat robotics and playing the piano.

Jacob Resneck

Jacob Resneck covers state government for Wisconsin Watch, a nonprofit newsroom run by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. Before this, he was regional news director for CoastAlaska, a public media collaborative in southeast Alaska. Resneck spent several years working in Germany and as an Istanbul-based freelancer covering Eastern Europe, the Middle East and post-Soviet space for national publications and radio outlets. Closer to home, he’s written for newspapers large and small (but mostly small) and regional magazines. He was an Austria Fellow with the International Center for Journalists, and recently finished his second term as a board member of the Alaska Press Club, which trains journalists and advocates for First Amendment rights in the 49th state. Resneck is married and has two children.

Madeline Heim

Madeline Heim reports for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where she covers Wisconsin’s environmental challenges as part of the Mississippi River Basin Project, a collaborative reporting network across the Basin. Previously, she was a health and science reporter for the Appleton Post-Crescent and the USA Today network in Wisconsin—her coverage of the pandemic earned top honors from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. Born and raised in the Badger State, she holds degrees in journalism and creative writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was editor-in-chief of the The Daily Cardinal. Heim has interned at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, and reported for the Winona Daily News in Winona, Minnesota, where she quickly fell in love with the Mississippi River region.