Photo by Tom Jenz
Tannette Johnson-Elie
Tannette Johnson-Elie
Longtime Milwaukee journalist Tannette Johnson-Elie is president of the Milwaukee chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, NABJ-Milwaukee. She is also the new managing editor of Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS).
Until 2009, Johnson-Elie had spent 20 years as a reporter and business columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where she covered a variety of beats including courts, education, crime, city and county governments, business and workplace diversity.
She went on to serve 15 years as a journalism lecturer for the University of Wisconsin Parkside, as a freelance journalist and also as a professor in Communication at Lake Forest College, Illinois. In addition, she helped lead Marquette University’s Urban Journalism Workshop from 2015 to 2020.
You could say that journalism runs through her veins. She got started early.
Johnson-Elie grew up on Chicago’s South Side near the University of Chicago in Hyde Park, one of the oldest integrated neighborhoods in the country. For junior high, she attended a magnet school, and then Kenwood Academy High School. “I remember my dad used to watch the 5P p.m. and 10 p.m. news every night,” she told me. “There was a Black anchorwoman, the one of the few Black women anchoring the nightly news on Chicago TV. I was smitten by her, and I decided that I wanted to be a TV news reporter. In high school, I wrote for the high school newspaper, and I was one of two gifted students from my high school who was chosen for an internship at the public radio station, WBEZ.”
I met Johnson-Elie over coffee at the Sherman Perk coffee shop in the central city. Soft and serious, she speaks slowly, as if her thoughts needed exploration before finding the trail.
You got hooked on communication already in high school, and so where did you go to college?
Bradley University, a private college in Peoria, Illinois. I majored in journalism. I started off in broadcast journalism in the field of radio. I did an internship in public radio, but the pay wasn't great. I had a friend who was working as a newspaper reporter and encouraged me to go into newspaper reporting. Newspapers were paying better, and the opportunities were plentiful.
What was your first job out of college?
Freelance reporter for the Hyde Park Herald, and I did telemarketing at night to make ends meet. Later, I worked my way up to full time reporting for a couple different suburban newspapers. Then, in 1989, I took a job at the Milwaukee Sentinel as a general assignment reporter. That was before the Sentinel and Journal merged.
That had to be an adjustment, moving from your native Chicago to Milwaukee and taking a new job.
I found Milwaukee to be an interesting place, and I loved being near Lake Michigan. I was dating my husband at the time. He was a banker in Chicago, and he would come up to spend time with me. My Milwaukee Sentinel co-workers became my friends and family.
I believe you worked at the Journal Company for 20 years. What were your newsroom jobs?
I started out as a general assignment reporter, and I was sent to different places to cover stories. It was a great way to learn about Milwaukee. There was no GPS back then, so I used old fashioned maps. The job challenge was peeling back the layers of Milwaukee, and I was finding out there were real problems, namely segregation and poverty. Because I grew up middle class, I had never seen poverty like I did in Milwaukee. I covered a lot of crime, shootings and killings in the inner city.
In the 1990s in the Black area of Milwaukee, the dealing of cocaine and crack provided a good share of the underground economy because most of those legitimate manufacturing jobs had left the city.
You are right. Good paying jobs that sustained Black families had all but disappeared. Back then, those manufacturing companies had been the backbone of the Black community.
How did you become a business writer at the Journal-Sentinel?
After working as a general assignment reporter, I ended up covering the Federal courts for two years, reporting on civil, criminal and bankruptcy courts. At that time, George Stanley, the future editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, was the business editor. The business department consisted of all white men. George wanted to diversify the department. He hired several women, and he asked if I would move over to the business department. I became inspired to join the staff after seeing women join the department and also after learning that many of the business reporters on staff did not have a business background. It made me realize that this was a role I could grow into. Also, my husband, the bank executive, encouraged me to take the position because he felt everything revolves around business. I took the job.
How long did you work as a business reporter?
About 12 years, and eventually I was assigned my own business column. I wanted to do stories on workplace diversity and minority businesses. My main aim for the column was to give a voice to those in the community who traditionally had not had a voice in mainstream media, particularly in the business news section. The column was successful and well-received and was supported in the newsroom. After a good run, as the paper was downsizing in 2008, I was asked to change the direction of the column to focus on social media and networking. This was not my passion. That was when I felt it was time for a change. About a year later, I took a voluntary buyout.
Where did your career path take you next?
I went into freelance reporting and academia. In 2015, I was hired as lead instructor and editor-in-chief of Marquette’s Urban Journalism Workshop. I ran the workshop for five years. I also went back to school and earned a master’s degree so that I could teach full time. I became a journalism lecturer at UW-Parkside for 15 years and eventually became communications director. After leaving Parkside in 2022, I became a communication lecturer for Lake Forest College before joining the Neighborhood News Service last fall.
Why did you like teaching journalism?
I got to the point that I felt it was time to give back and teach communication, writing and research skills to young people. Later, I included multi-media in my curriculum. Teaching was very rewarding for me.
Let’s talk about the Wisconsin Black Media Association, which is the local chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). I understand the WBMA will now be known as NABJ-Milwaukee to align with the national organization. You are the president of NABJ-Milwaukee. Why the name change?
We have an energized and dynamic group of young people in our organization. They wanted the name change because of the strength of the National Association of Black Journalists, which has about 500 members.
What does NABJ-Milwaukee currently do in terms of the local media landscape?
Our first mission is to be an advocate for Black journalists and communication professionals in the Milwaukee area and to provide professional development. As president, I believe it’s important to value our members. As journalists of color, they face certain challenges that other journalists don’t experience. We support their professional development needs. We hold workshops. We bring in speakers. We provide scholarships under the Gregory Stanford Scholarship Fund and also the Carol Meekins Scholarship. We also provide mentoring. We also provide a seminar, “How to Get Your Story Told,” to help any organizations and community members to understand how to work with the media. As NABJ-Milwaukee president, my primary goal is to foster the next generation of Black journalists.
Not long ago, you were named the new managing editor of Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. What does the NNS do and who are your readers?
NNS is a daily digital online publication that covers Black and Brown neighborhoods and underserved communities in Milwaukee. We try to do cover stories that mainstream legacy media might not cover. Our reporters cover these neighborhoods and might even have grown up there. We have five full-time reporters.
Is the Neighborhood News Service funded by nonprofit contributions?
Yes, we are strictly a nonprofit newsroom. We have donors and contributors who help fund the NNS. Marquette University has generously allowed us to house our newsroom and offices on its campus.
[Funders for NNS have included the Zilber Family Foundation, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Public Policy Forum, Northwestern Mutual Foundation, the Brewers Community Foundation, the Croen Foundation and the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region.]
Here is my take on inner city issues, namely Black neighborhoods. I am in close touch with street leaders, businesspeople and politicians, and I try to cover their stories.
And you are doing a great job.
Thank you. What I often hear from Black residents is that the local mainstream media do not spend enough time telling the positive stories of what happens in their neighborhoods.
I can relate to that. When I first started, I’d be sent into the inner city to cover a fire or a shooting. That gave me a jaded view of the community, even as a Black woman, because all I saw was negative. When I started covering minority businesses, some minority business owners wouldn’t talk to me on the phone. They wanted to meet me in person, have coffee, talk about their businesses. We use this approach at NNS. For example, we do profiles of people who are not the newsmakers but those who are under the radar. In addition to reporting on issues of interest to our readers, we also educate them on valuable resources that are available to help them navigate their daily lives. We also provide resource lists for people in need, such as how to pay your heating bill or where to get medical help or how to file your taxes. We write stories that illuminate problems. Recently, we ran a story about opioid addiction in the Native American community. Other issues we have illuminated include stop and frisk. We have been closely covering the controversy surrounding the Housing Authority and the police department’s stop and frisk policies.
I think you are about to launch a podcast that will cover stories of successful Black women entrepreneurs and business leaders.
Former longtime anchorwoman and documentary film producer, Joanne Williams, is helping me launch a podcast about Black women entrepreneurs and business leaders. We started the podcast at the Marquette’s multi-media studios. We did several interviews. But the podcast is now on hold because I have too much on my plate. We hope to launch our podcast in the near future.
For access to the Neighborhood News Service, visit milwaukeenns.org.
To find out more about National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), visit nabjonline.org.
