Managing Editor
Mark Lisheron is the managing editor of the Badger Institute’s magazine, Diggings.
He is one of the founders of The Texas Monitor, a small government, free market news website based in Austin. He previously served as the managing editor for Reason Magazine’s website. Prior to that, he was national deputy editor for Watchdog.org, coordinating editors and reporters in more than two dozen state bureaus across the country.
Over a more than 40-year career in journalism, 30 of them in newspapers, Lisheron was nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize. He is the winner of the Stanley Walker Award, the highest award for journalism presented by The Texas Institute of Letters, the First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists in Texas and several national and state awards from Associated Press and United Press International.
Lisheron anchored the Austin American-Statesman’s first modern investigative journalism team. He also served with distinction as the lone conservative/libertarian voice on the paper’s editorial board. He produced award winning journalism during 14 years with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Beaumont (TX) Enterprise and the Tyler (TX) Morning Telegraph.
Carl Sandburg recounts his disenchantment
“Hordes of job-seeking Socialists descended on our office wanting the crumbs of victory,” says famed poet, who served as Emil Seidel’s secretary.
By Mark Lisheron
Dire need of accountability
The Badger Institute investigates where the billions went.
By Mark Lisheron
Medicaid on Red Alert
As stimulus rules supercharge costs, pressure grows to expand the unaccountable program in Wisconsin
By Mark Lisheron
Overwhelmed by COVID-19 relief
Local governments, awash in federal cash, still trying to spend down millions from the CARES Act
By Mark Lisheron
State readies for absentee ballot crush
Elections commission is confident that ballot tracking and barcoding will mean smooth and secure voting
By Mark Lisheron
The Hop: Federal monies create a ‘financial anvil’ for Milwaukee
As streetcar ridership and funding dwindle, alderman warns of long-term fiscal burden
By Mark Lisheron
November 23, 2020
Victor Berger: Virulent bigot
The untold story — finally — of Milwaukee’s socialist icon and his appalling views toward blacks, immigrants and women.
By Mark Lisheron
Wealth tax doomed Emil Seidel
Milwaukee’s first socialist mayor blamed his 1912 re-election loss on his call to tax the assets of the rich.
By Mark Lisheron
Wisconsin mayors test guaranteed income
No strings attached entitlements for targeted groups is preview of something more permanent
By Mark Lisheron
