Nothing usually gets journalists angry faster than attacks on other journalists.

That is exactly what appears to be happening with the Joint Finance Committee’s move to evict the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism from its location at a building in which I spent far too much time, UW–Madison’s Vilas Communication Hall.

The name of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism implies, duh, investigative journalism. This investigative journalism appears more often targeted at Wisconsin’s right than Wisconsin’s left. That does not mean the WCIJ doesn’t deserve to exist. (Indeed, I used one of their interesting stories tipped off to them by some weekly newspaper editor somewhere about a battle between sheriffs and county board over the classification of county jail employees in the post-Act 10 world of ours. I suspect I will be using others.)

The WCIJ does valuable work for the newspapers of Wisconsin that have either dropped investigative journalism or never had it (the latter including the chronically short-staffed weekly newspapers). Some of WCIJ’s work seems to me to more appropriately be on the opinion page than a news page, and some weekly newspaper editors don’t make the correct distinction. (I write that as someone who loathes stories labeled “Analysis” that contain little more than the opinions of the writer when put anywhere besides a page labeled “Opinion.”) But that’s up to those editors, and ultimately those newspapers’ readers.

(More disclosure: I know WCIJ’s Bill Lueders. He used to be the editor of Madison’s Isthmus weekly newspaper. (Isthmus hasn’t been the same since the “Ursula Understands” column went away, but Bill had nothing to do with that.) Bill and I faced off in one of the nastiest hours in the history of Wisconsin Public Radio’s Joy Cardin program. I wrote on a different blog that had Bill and I been not separated by 75 miles, fisticuffs might have broken out in the studio. (That same day, I was called a Nazi on my own blog. For those who want to remember Recallarama fondly, think again.) Bill told me at this year’s Wisconsin Newspaper Association convention (where fisticuffs did not break out) that people still remember that show. It’s probably online somewhere.)

Defenders of the WCIJ include, by the way, those who should be critical of left-leaning organizations but are sticking with their media brethren — for instance, the Wisconsin Reporter:

At first blush, I was apt to agree with the Republicans. Why should taxpayers fund any sort of journalism, I wondered? Except that, as Wisconsin Reporter’s Matt Kittle revealed in a report Thursday, the center really doesn’t receive government subsidies. I use a qualifier because it is housed in a government-funded university facility. But its $400,000 budget comes from private foundations, news organizations and individual supporters. It receives money from lefty George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

It is housed in two offices at UW’s Vilas Hall, but in exchange for the small office space the center provides paid interns, guest lecturers and other educational services. I suppose that any deal with a public facility has some level of taxpayer involvement but this clearly is not a clear subsidy situation. It appears mainly to be a petty act against a journalism center legislators don’t like. It’s waste of time as news headlines focused on this silliness rather than on, say, a new report showing massive Milwaukee public school savings thanks to the GOP’s Act 10.

After perusing the center’s work, I conclude that the center’s work tilts vaguely to the Left. Its journalism product, though well done, often features stories that push for more regulations and increased funding of government programs. For instance, recent investigations took a jaundiced view of the state’s concealed-carry law and found misdoing by the state’s nursing homes. But there’s nothing outrageously ideological going on. Most of the stories come to benign conclusions, such as one that found that “Only three of the University of Wisconsin System’s 13 four-year campuses — Platteville, Stevens Point and Parkside — have more than half of students, faculty and staff signed up to receive text alerts.”

By the University of Wisconsin’s wacky standards, the center is practically right wing.

Because the Republicans are picking on this one center and not any of the many of the genuinely subsidized operations at the university, it smacks of unfairness – an effort to single out a journalistic voice that makes these particular Republicans uncomfortable for some unspecified reason.

But now the scrutiny over the action will make them even more uncomfortable. The Society of Professional Journalists issued a statement blasting the decision.

I think I can discern “some unspecified reason.” It seems quite obvious that this is some kind of payback on the part of those who introduced the measure. That would seem to include …

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said Wednesday that he didn’t want taxpayer support going to the investigative center, since he believed it had a bias. …

[In 2011] the center published an article that raised questions about an auto insurance bill supported by Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette), an insurance agent and co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee.

Vos’ statement seems, to the cynical, disingenuous:

Vos argued it was an issue of fairness, that the university was unduly subsidizing the center with their voluntary agreement.

“Taxpayers provide the resources for University of Wisconsin System. I think it’s a legitimate function of state legislators as representatives of the people to say whether or not the university should be creating arrangements that some in the public might perceive to be helping one organization or another without giving the same access. The university didn’t go through a (request for proposal) process. They didn’t say let any organization apply and we’ll choose that which is best,” he said.

Well, the WCIJ is far from the only non-UW organization that takes advantage of UW resources, more often than not students looking for internships. I don’t think the Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee are going on a crusade to wipe all presence of non-UW organizations from all 26 UW campuses. If you’re looking for targets of misuse of taxpayer dollars within the UW System, there are a host of potential worthwhile targets. (As it is, the more heinous thing about the WCIJ is not that’s using UW resources; it’s that it gets enormous amounts of funding from the evil George Soros, as well as funding from such liberal organizations as the Society for Environmental Journalists and the Ford Foundation.)

I have little no sympathy for politicians who claim that the media is too hard on them. The media is supposed to be hard on politicians, even to the point of unfairness. (Nevertheless, don’t bother complaining.) In fact, if anything the media is far too lenient on Democratic and liberal politicians, as the Obama and Clinton administrations proved. The media would have crucified a Republican president who engaged in Bill Clinton’s “bimbo eruptions.” The media would have crucified a Republican president who engaged in Barack Obama’s spying on American citizens’ phone calls and emails.

On the other hand, it’s not hard to see why Vos and Nygren, or whoever, did what they did. When Republicans treat the media nicely, it more often than not doesn’t help them. On the other hand, Republican complains of media bias do resonate with the Republican base, which believes that the media is out to get Republicans and conservatives. The media’s favorite Republicans tend to be those who refuse to sing from the GOP hymnal, such as Sens. Dale Schultz (R–Richland Center), Mike Ellis (R–Neenah) and Luther Olsen (R–Ripon), or, before he was a presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. John McCain (R–Arizona). Those Republicans who think the GOP isn’t conservative enough, such as former Sen. Dave Zien (R–Eau Claire), are derided as flakes. Left-wingers like former (I’m so happy to type that) U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold are applauded for their courage; conservative Democrats (when you can find them) are sneered at.

More generally, the public generally yawns when journalists complain they are being targeted or treated unfairly. There are two groups who defend journalists: (1) journalists, and (2) politicians who perceive something to gain by defending journalists. (On the second point, if you think the Democratic Party supports journalism, this proves otherwise.)

If you believe that talk-show hosts are journalists (well, are bloggers? Two words: “First Amendment”), you should enjoy the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s description of the disagreement between WTMJ radio’s Charlie Sykes and WISN radio’s Mark Belling:

Charlie Sykes, whose morning show airs on WTMJ-AM (620), ripped the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee for its early-morning vote to evict the nonpartisan Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism from its offices at UW-Madison. Sykes called the vote “petty” and “vindictive.”

But fellow Milwaukee talker Mark Belling — with an afternoon show on WISN-AM (1130) — came out with a full-throated endorsement of the legislative panel’s vote, calling it a “brazen conflict of interest” for a news organization to receive free office space from a government entity.

Off air, Belling expressed outrage that his longtime radio competitor was speaking out for what Belling views as a left-leaning journalism center.

“I will remind you Charlie is the author of A Nation Of Moochers in which he decried the very mooching he is defending,” Belling said by email to No Quarter.

Sykes playfully responded, “Book plug! Do I need to pay him royalties?” …

On his website and on air, Sykes suggested that the center has a leftward tilt and receives funding from such liberal outfits as the George Soros-run Foundation to Promote Open Society and the Joyce Foundation in Chicago. No Quarter first wrote about the group’s financial supporters in 2011.

But Sykes noted that the center, run by Madison journalist Andy Hall, has done work lauded by conservatives. He said the small news operation was the first to expose a proposed high-speed train between Milwaukee and Madison “as a sham.”

This eventually became a major theme in the 2010 gubernatorial contest won by Republican Scott Walker.

“The GOP’s budget motion was a vindictive attack on a journalistic operation on ideological grounds,” Sykes wrote on Right Wisconsin, his conservative website, in a post picked up by the investigative center. The website and Sykes’ station are owned by Journal Communication, which operates theJournal Sentinel.

“At a time when conservatives should be embracing government restraint,” Sykes continued, “the motion combines some of the worst aspects of the IRS and DOJ scandals — using government to punish those perceived as political enemies combined with a clear assault on the free press.”

By Thursday afternoon, however, Belling was offering a staunch support for the Republican legislators who inserted the item in the budget bill.

The conservative talker suggested that Hall’s center was simply doing news stories to promote liberals and Democrats.

Most notably, the center broke the story in 2011 about state Supreme Court Justices David Prosser and Ann Walsh Bradley getting in a physical altercation. Many conservatives were upset that that initial story did not include the perspective of conservative justices who later said that Bradley had advanced on Prosser before he put his hands on her neck.

“The Center does point-of-view journalism from a liberal perspective,” Belling said in an email. “Fine. But they have no more business operating in a government facility than I do.” …

A second conservative talker, Jerry Bader in Green Bay, also criticized Sykes, saying on his Friday show that he believes Sykes has “abandoned his conservative principles to support a friend.” Sykes said he has long known Bill Lueders, a staffer with the center, and considers him “intellectually honest and fair.”

As far as Bader’s comment, I would suggest, as I did last week, that if politics is one of the top five most important things in your life, you need to get a life.

David Blaska, formerly of The Capital Times and the aforementioned Isthmus, adds:

I like Bill Lueders. I respect Bill Lueders. He is a hardworking, ethical, and usually accurate journalist. He is also as liberal as a tenured sociology professor.

Bill is the star of the Center for Investigative Journalism. The Legislature’s budget-writing committee wants to kick the center off campus. The center is a privately funded outfit. One of its major benefactors is the liberal moneyman George Soros.

What do you think the reaction would be from Democrats if the center were funded by the Koch Brothers? How would they like the MacIver Institute ensconced at our public university?

In fact, Bill Lueders’ most recent effort is a defense of a proposed PBS hit job on the Koch Brothers (“… the role of corporate bigwigs in the crackdown on public employee unions”). Don’t bother looking for a CIJ investigation on the excesses of the teachers union.

Bill and I are in the same business. We are advocacy journalists – me from the right, Bill from the left. The difference is I admit it.

Bill once celebrated a UW professor’s ill-considered remark that Republican voters are stupid, in the wake of the national Republican tsunami in 2010. Lueders wrote (in a column headlined “The Triumph of Stupidity”) that it was “The answer I’ve been looking for.” Sure, it’s his opinion, but it is an insulting and tendentious opinion. Do you really think it is possible to divest oneself of such bias as if it were a baseball cap?

The UW professor apologized for his statement; Bill never has.

Having done this sort of thing for a quarter century, and from both sides of the notebook or microphone, I can see both sides. It is possible to defend journalism without defending individual journalists whose work shouldn’t be defended. (See: The C(r)apital Times and any journalist who sucks up to politicians of any party.) I think, however, the GOP is making a mistake by criticizing something whose absence from Vilas Hall will not make the state better, and for something that neither ranks in the top 50 issues of importance in this state nor is going to give the GOP a political advantage.

Journalists are doing what they should be doing when they are making life a little, or maybe a lot, difficult for those in power. (Which, to Blaska’s point, should include tenured UW professors. The First Amendment includes no provision insulating you from the consequences of your free expression.) Republicans control the Executive Residence and both houses of the Legislature, and the state Supreme Court has a conservative majority for at least the next couple election cycles. It’s always easier for politicians and political commentators to play offense than defense; when you’re  in power, you get to deal with the snipers, whether or not they have a point. If the choice in our two-party world is for journalists to be attack dogs or lapdogs, the voter and the taxpayer should prefer the former to the latter.

I wish WCIJ had made life more difficult for the Doyle administration when it made state finances crash and burn. Maybe had a non-conservative questioned the wisdom of a $2.2 billion tax increase during a recession, we wouldn’t have the economy this state has today. Perhaps if WCIJ had existed in the days when Gov. James Doyle issued unending gambling rights to American Indian tribes in exchange for campaign donations to Democrats, the state could have had more of a debate over whether never-expiring gaming compacts were a good idea for the state. In doing a search of WCIJ’s website, the most extensive coverage of the Doyle administration was a controversy over travel expenses. WCIJ would have done a valuable service as well by questioning the views of public employee unions, specifically teacher unions, that making well-compensated public employees pay more (but less than those whose taxes pay their salaries and pay for their benefits) for their benefits and retirement, would destroy Wisconsin. (For instance, WCIJ might have looked at the salaries and benefits of the management of, say, the Wisconsin Education Association Council.)

There are, however, organizations that do what WCIJ does from a more conservative perspective — the MacIver Institute and the Wisconsin Reporter, to name two. Americans used to believe that the truth could be learned from a variety of different and disagreeing sources. Then again, Americans used to be more tolerant of views different from their own, politicians used to believe their job was to oversee government operations instead of running people’s lives, and journalists used to want to report the news instead of changing (or so they believed) the world. Readers should be able to read a variety of sources and decide for themselves what or whom they believe.

Those who run WCIJ claim they have gotten numerous offers of new quarters. I’d suggest they take up one of their would-be real estate benefactors. To have an independent journalism operation located in a government facility gives the (incorrect) impression that the WCIJ is government-sponsored journalism, which the Founding Fathers certainly never intended. Three words familiar to journalists and politicians should give all the reason necessary to move: “Appearance of impropriety.”