NEWS COLUMNISTS

I'm the Journal Sentinel's new editor. But this is your newsroom.

Greg Borowski
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It is almost exactly five miles from my house in Bay View to the red lighthouse behind the amphitheater on the Summerfest grounds.

The stadium is 14 miles roundtrip, if you touch the outfield wall.

Same if you head to Grant Park, unless you detour back through Cudahy, past where the giant Arby’s hat sign used to stand.

I didn’t know any of this until I became a runner. I mean, I knew where everything was – I grew up here, after all. But I didn’t know the mileage or the backways and shortcuts or that, if you head out early enough, there’s a great view of the sunrise over the Hoan Bridge from the boat launch tucked away on South Water Street.

You see the city in a different way on foot than you do by car, when you’re zipping down the highway or focused on beating the next red light.

Executive Editor Greg Borowski

I’ve been thinking about that over the past days, since I was named executive editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, my hometown newspaper, a place where I have worked for nearly 25 years, first as a reporter and more recently overseeing our investigative team, then our local news operation here and at 10 sister newsrooms across the state.

That is: Where you look is what you see.

This is a great city, an absolutely great community.

We’ve got amazing parks, an incredible array of festivals. We have cutting-edge manufacturers, championship-level sports teams, world-class universities. We are the driver of a state at the center of the political universe, one filled with deep traditions and cultural touchstones, from hunting to supper clubs to kringle. That big old lake’s not too bad either.

But, let’s be blunt, we have a lot of challenges, too: 

Schools that lag behind, crime that plagues too many neighborhoods, deep-rooted segregation and grinding poverty and gaps between the skills folks have and the jobs that are open. We face inequities in education, wages, health care, housing, so much more. And all of this holds our community back, holds our entire state back.

Where you look is what you see. And what you do is who you are.

My late father, Leonard, was a social worker. My mother, Mary Anne, now retired, was a teacher. They raised me, two brothers and a sister in the Riverwest neighborhood, in the shadow of St. Casimir church.

They were always engaged in this community, from block clubs to school committees to monthly treks – kids in tow – to serve soup kitchen meals at St. Ben’s. In 1984, they helped save Messmer High School, which was the city’s only naturally integrated school, when it was closed by the Archdiocese. 

As a junior that summer, I got an up-close look at what journalism can do, as stories in the Journal and the Sentinel and on local TV elevated our voices, called attention to an injustice and rallied a community around a cause.

My parents chose their professions because they could make a difference.

I did as well. I chose journalism.

After graduating from Marquette University, I spent nearly a decade at newspapers in Marion, Ind., and Lansing, Mich. I returned to Milwaukee in 1998 to work at the Journal Sentinel, where I quickly found myself – in my own way – steeped in the issues my parents faced, determined to expose problems and always point toward solutions.

When I was announced a few days ago as executive editor, I told our newsroom this: “I don’t think there’s a city in this country that needs a strong, high-performing, committed newsroom more than this city does.”

And I told them this: This is not my newsroom. This is our newsroom. This is the city’s newsroom, because we’re here to serve our community.

So, this is a good point to share some of the things I want you to know. Not about me. About us.

Our team – reporters, photojournalists, everyone – is committed. At this stage, with all the threats to the news industry and all the scrutiny and outright attacks on our profession, anyone who is here wants to be here. Anyone here wants to make a difference. 

We live here. We drive the same roads, have kids in the same schools, shop in the same stores, go to the same concerts, cheer for the same teams. We want to see this community succeed.

We work hard. Indeed, we’ve never worked harder, delivering news every day, in print and online, in text and images and video and audio. Breaking news, investigations, features. Restaurant reviews, game recaps, the latest on the weather. Often all at once.

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We are smaller, yes, but we are fiercely determined and relentlessly competitive. We don’t like to miss anything. We kick ourselves when we do.

We do our level best, every day, to be fair and to tell thoughtful, important stories about this place we call home.

Will we miss the mark sometimes? Sure.

Doesn’t everyone?

When we do, we’ll own it, but we’ll keep moving forward. You’re welcome to criticize us, of course. But let’s skip the vitriol and vilification, and start from the idea that we’re all trying to do our best in a difficult, challenging time. 

Understand: Our reporters are not advocates. 

We don’t put a thumb on the scale. We’re not pushing for your cause or fighting against it. No reporter was doing that back during the fight to save Messmer. As reporters did then, we are simply telling stories, as fully as we know how, and hoping they make a difference.

That could be getting a Black woman mathematician’s papers placed in the Library of Congress. All because we told a story. 

That could be prompting more than 300 people to volunteer to pore over deeds with racist covenants as part of a monumental mapping segregation project. All because we told a story. 

That could be getting college tuition covered for a group of Afghan refugees. 

All because we told a story. 

Believe me, we walk out of this newsroom feeling pretty damn good when that sort of thing happens – just as much as when our reporting changes laws, exposes fraud, prompts reforms or even saves lives.

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Expect to hear more from me, and to see more of all of us, in the days ahead. There is much more to say, because this newsroom has a good story to tell. 

About itself. And about all of us.

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

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