After 25 years at the Journal Sentinel, here's what I can tell you about our future

Greg Borowski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Updated ·6 min read
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Executive Editor Greg Borowski
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On my first assignment at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, as the new City Hall reporter, I went to a news conference where north side residents called on the city to do something about the perpetual flooding of Lincoln Creek that was plaguing the neighborhood.

Afterward, I introduced myself to two of those who spoke: Ald. Marvin Pratt, who represented the area, and Al Holmes, head of the neighborhood association. When I gave my name, Holmes narrowed his eyes and looked at me: “Say that name again.”

I repeated it. He looked harder.

“Who’s your dad?”

I told him the name: Leonard.

“I haven’t seen you since you were this tall,” Holmes said, breaking into a smile and holding his hand somewhere below his waist. Turns out he used to live in Riverwest, where I was raised, and back in the day he and my parents were active together in neighborhood issues.

After nine years at newspapers in Marion, Indiana, and Lansing, Michigan, I had moved back to Milwaukee and knew instantly this would be the smallest town I ever worked in. My anniversary date at the Journal Sentinel is Aug. 10, 1998 – 25 years ago.

It was before Google was launched, before smartphones, before Facebook and Instagram and what used to be Twitter. The media world was on the precipice of the massive disruption and cascading change that continues today. At the time, JSOnline was still a pretty new thing, and was centered around posting the stories from that morning’s newspaper online.

Heck, back then it often took a CD in the mail to get the latest version of AOL, which screeched at you whenever you dialed it up over your landline.

I thought back to that first interview recently, as my anniversary date approached, but especially a few weeks back when I stopped by a picnic for newsroom alumni, most of whom retired from the Journal Sentinel, but a few from the pre-merger Journal or Sentinel staffs.

There was a sea of familiar faces and multiple jokes along the lines of: “Sure hope seeing you here doesn’t mean you’ve already retired.”

Since it was a group of journalists, there was also a flow of questions about my new job as executive editor – mainly about what it’s like in the newsroom these days, whether we’ll be able to keep up the quality journalism this community expects, whether folks are simply too worn out and worn down to hang on. In short: Is it going to be OK?

Here’s what I told them:

We’re hiring. In the past months we’ve added the Milwaukee Connect desk, which focuses on information to help you navigate your world, from air quality hazards to what the new sales tax means for your budget. We’ve hired a new photojournalist and a new dining critic and added a conservative columnist to our rotation. We’ve got new people covering the intersection of higher education and jobs, Indigenous affairs and more.

Many of our new hires have ties to Milwaukee or Wisconsin and are helping increase our staff expertise and diversity. We’re recommitting to our community and working to better connect with all corners of it: Tracking who we talk to for our stories, a staff sit-down with LGBTQ leaders, a photo booth at Juneteenth Day. (If you haven’t heard from us, you’re probably on our list. Or feel free to drop me a line.)

We’ve expanded our partnerships, from longstanding ones with Marquette Law School and the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism, also at Marquette, to initiatives with Google and the Poynter Institute around disinformation. We’ve received new grants – to cover travel around the world for a major project on the future of manufacturing jobs and to pay for interns here at home.

We’ve launched “Inside the Journal Sentinel” program for subscribers and donors, free events that feature a presentation by a journalist, a talk with editors and a newsroom tour. We started with a full house for photojournalist Mike De Sisti. Next up: Packers reporter Tom Silverstein.

Meanwhile, we’re set to cover the Jordan Love era in Green Bay, the new-look Badgers under Coach Luke Fickell and Shaka Smart’s Top 10 basketball squad at Marquette. We’re launching a new newsletter focused on high school sports, and hoping for a Brewers playoff run – and one for the Bucks as well.

Of course, our political team is prepping for this month’s Republican presidential debate, the spectacle of the Republican National Convention next year, and the pitched-battle for Wisconsin’s electoral votes in 2024. PolitiFact Wisconsin will be back in full swing.

We have a statewide team set to relaunch the award-winning Kids in Crisis series, which focuses on youth mental health issues, which worsened during the pandemic and keep playing out in schools and homes across Wisconsin. Reporters from our sister newsrooms in Green Bay and Appleton are involved.

Beyond that, we have a series of great in-depth projects in the pipeline, continuing our legacy of world-class investigative and explanatory journalism. But we’re also digging in on quick-turn tips from readers and residents around problems that might otherwise be ignored, through our rebuilt and expanding Public Investigator team.

We’re reframing what success looks like – it’s not just changing a law or exposing corruption (though we love it when that happens). It’s finding and telling the stories that identify solutions, shine a light on something good, or just cause people to open their eyes or their hearts a little bit more.

For those at the picnic, I explained it this way: We’re as fast and tenacious as the old Sentinel on breaking news and we’re as deep and thoughtful as the Journal when it comes to features and stories that provide a detailed look at what’s happening.

The main difference today: It’s often the same reporter doing both.

And doing it amid unprecedented challenges and intense scrutiny, during a period of toxic political polarization that too often puts a target on the backs of journalists.

But they are doing it – day in and day out, with skill, purpose and commitment. I can honestly say I’m more proud of what I see from our team now than at any point in those 25 years.

So, yes, with this team we’re going to be OK.

More than OK.

I see that every day. And I hope that, as readers, you’re seeing it as well.

Greg Borowski is executive editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. You can follow him on Twitter @GregJBorowski and reach him via greg.borowski@jrn.com.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What's the future of the Journal Sentinel?