When Isthmus News Editor Bill Lueders first wrote about "Patty," a visually impaired woman charged with falsely reporting a rape, he hoped his 4,400-word piece would influence the prosecution to change direction. That was in 1998, and Lueders was so confident Patty was telling the truth that he told the mayor he would quit his job if he was proved wrong. His article didn't have the effect he had hoped, but prosecutors did eventually drop the charges against Patty, and in 2001 a suspect was charged with sexually assaulting her. Lueders expanded his investigation into a book, Cry Rape, newly published by the University of Wisconsin Press. The Capital Times in Madison, Wis., says Lueders' "achievement is large -- the book is not a polemic, the tone is not angry, but the systemic fallibility Cry Rape reveals is frightening."
"Thirty years -- that's a lot of water under the bridge. And you know, the river seems to flow faster and faster," Isthmus founder and Publisher Vincent O'Hern writes on the occasion of the paper's third decennial. The Wisconsin capital's weekly has come a long way from its self-described "Laurel and Hardy go to press" beginnings, and O'Hern promises the staff will be "celebrating, reflecting and commemorating throughout the year."
Bill Lueders (pictured) wrote the lyrics based on his own troubles with records requests, then convinced Wisconsin musician Peter Leidy to write music and record the song in time for Sunshine Week, a national observance of the public's right to information about its government. "It's a topic with contemporary resonance," says Lueders, who is also the president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. Isthmus won two open records lawsuits against the Madison Police Department, in 1996 and 1998. "The Open Records Blues" can be downloaded here and is free for broadcast.
Bill Lueders was one of two news commentators asked to predict Madison's news in 2006 by WISC-TV. He guessed it would be a good year for the city's mayor and Sen. Russ Feingold, but "a very rough year for Republicans in Wisconsin."
