State Republicans Target Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, Boots them from UW!

While Republican whine about the IRS tea party being targeted, they decided to do a little partisan "targeting" themselves, by trashing the First Amendment:

WSJ: Center for Investigative Journalism targeted: The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism could no longer be housed at the University of Wisconsin under a provision added to the state budget. The Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee voted Wednesday on the prohibition. No UW employees would be allowed to work at the center, either. The center is housed at UW-Madison and collaborates with the School of Journalism and Mass Communications as well as Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television.

Democratic Sen. Bob Wirch opposes the prohibition, saying the Legislature should not try to stop investigative journalism. He says, "That is just very bad public policy."

This amazing attack on a non-partisan organization that costs the taxpayer nothing is just another example of the Republican winner-take-all authoritarian style of repressive government we can expect to see. Here's the other side of the story:

We were blindsided by the action of JFC, the Legislature’s budget-writing committee,” executive director Andy Hall tells Romenesko readers. “Oddly, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism doesn't receive direct state funding. Its $400,000 budget is supported by private foundations, individuals and news organizations.”

From Jim Romenesko.com, the letter from Andy Hall:

Today I’m overwhelmed by messages of support from journalists and journalism educators, here and across the nation. They’re concerned that the Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee’s action could have a ripple effect, limiting the public’s access to critical information that holds the government accountable, threatening the operations of other campus-based nonprofit journalism centers across the nation, and unreasonably restricting academic freedoms of educators to draw upon the best resources for educating students.

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism operates in two small offices in Vilas Communication Hall — used by its four-member professional staff and four UW-Madison reporting interns — under a Facilities Use Agreement that requires the Center to provide paid internships, classroom collaborations, guest lectures and other educational services.

Republicans showed just how grateful they were for the center’s recent help?

The Joint Finance Committee recently relied upon our investigation into the reliability of GPS tracking of offenders to curtail the governor’s requested expansion of GPS tracking until the reliability can be proven.

Here's another reason Republicans retaliated:

jsonline: The center in 2011 broke the story about state Supreme Court Justices David Prosser and Ann Walsh Bradley getting in a physical altercation.