No problem is too big or too small for our Public Investigator team
![Portrait of Greg Borowski](/https/www.jsonline.com/gcdn/presto/2019/10/20/PMJS/98954e44-d9d8-4ac3-bb48-6dd849ae6932-MJS_Greg_Borowski_-_Employee.jpg?crop=308,308,x109,y25&width=48&height=48&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
In November, we told the story of a 98-year-old woman who was wrongfully threatened with eviction from a building she had lived in for 16 years. When we did, the property managers backed off and apologized.
When more residents at the complex reached out about problems, we did more reporting. And, when we published that story in February, the owners vowed more improvements.
That’s not a coincidence. That’s results.
In the midst of the reporting, I got this question: Why are you even reporting on this at all? More specifically, the framing of the question was: This kind of stuff is probably happening at apartment complexes everywhere in town, so why are you so focused on this one?
My response: If it’s happening everywhere, that’s even more reason for us to write about it.
The stories in question were written by Tamia Fowlkes, one of three members of our rebooted and expanded Public Investigator team. The reporters are charged with — as their tagline says — “taking tips, chasing leads and exposing problems.”
When we started rebuilding the Public Investigator team, we sought reporters for whom no story is too big or too small. We also wanted reporters who will put the community — everyday people, not politicos or pundits — at the center of their stories.
We want both priorities to be reflected across our newsroom — in the stories we tell and in the determined and thoughtful journalists we have on our team telling them.
Here is a look at the Public Investigator team:
Tamia Fowlkes is a Milwaukee native and attended Divine Savior Holy Angels High School, then the University of Wisconsin. She worked for us as an intern, went to Columbia University for graduate school, spent last summer at the Washington Post and then came home.
She is passionate about making investigative journalism more accessible — for example, by sharing our work with younger readers through TikTok.
Quinn Clark grew up in Muskego, attended Mount Mary University and received a graduate degree from Northwestern University in Chicago. She joined our suburban team in July 2022 and last fall moved to the Public Investigator role.
She loves digging into public records and is fearless when it comes to asking tough questions of powerful people or institutions.
Gina Lee Castro, who grew up in Pensacola, Florida, joined our newsroom in January. She is also a Northwestern graduate and worked in Evanston, Illinois, covering city-funded reparations and, most recently, in Chicago, reporting for the podcast 100 Latina Birthdays.
She is the classic shoe-leather reporter who can often be seen at community events or knocking on doors.
The three work closely with Daphne Chen, our investigations editor, and Ashley Luthern, deputy editor and reporter.
Already the team has written about complaints about brown, “fishy” water in Manitowoc; car wash customers who couldn’t cancel their memberships; a driver’s fight to get a parking ticket refunded even though she could prove she paid the meter; an apparent mice infestation at a college-owned apartment complex, why an unsolicited cash offer to buy your home is probably too good to be true and many more.
Often, investigative reporting highlights something unusual or unique in how it is broken, dysfunctional or harming people. These stories resonate not because they are rare, but because they are so common.
So, please join us in this effort. I am inviting you to do two things:
Meet the team: Our Public Investigator reporters will be hosting a series of “spotlight sessions” in the coming months at locations throughout the community. The first one is aimed at 18- to 25-year-olds, but all are welcome. It will be held Saturday, April 13, at 1 p.m. at the Cactus Club, 2496 S. Wentworth Ave., in Milwaukee’s Bay View neighborhood.
For more information and to sign up, go to bit.ly/publicinvestigator.
Send us your tips: They may focus on government corruption, corporate wrongdoing, consumer complaints, medical scams or more. We'll investigate anywhere in Wisconsin. Email your tips to [email protected] or call 414-319-9061.
You can also submit tips online at jsonline.com/tips.
Those tips, of course, can be large or small. Afterall, if you’re experiencing problems or dysfunction, well, it’s probably happening to others too.
And those are stories we need to tell.
Greg Borowski is executive editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. You can follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter,@GregJBorowski and reach him via[email protected].
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