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James E. Causey is an award-winning special projects reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and a 2023 Senior Fellow for the Center for Health Journalism’s National Fellowship. He has spent more than 30 years as a professional journalist since becoming the first African-American high school intern at the Milwaukee Sentinel at age 15. He worked for the paper every summer through high school and worked as a night cops’ reporter while studying journalism at Marquette University, from which he earned his bachelor’s degree, followed by a master of business administration degree from Cardinal Stritch University. In 2008, he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where he studied the effects of hip-hop music on urban youth. On his return to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he joined the editorial board as a columnist until October 2014, when he was promoted to engagement editor. He is an active member of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), former president of the Wisconsin Black Media Association and a member of Phi Beta Sigma Inc. He was also named the 2013 Morse-Marshall alumni of the year and a Scripps Howard Award finalist in 2013. In 2018, he received an NABJ award for his work on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel special project, “50-Year-Ache.” He was a 2018 Center for Health Journalism National Fellow and grantee of the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism. He received several national awards for his Fellowship project, “Cultivating a Community,” including a first place award from the Society of Features Journalism. He was a 2019-2020 Marquette O’Brien Fellow and has self-published two fiction books.
Articles
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Phone calls are critical for inmates to keep up with their family. But depending on where someone is incarcerated, the costs vary significantly.
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Take it from a journalist who recently lost a loved one to a fentanyl overdose: Drug deaths should not be sanitized.
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By lifting up the voices of children and teens, journalists can make a difference.
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A former judge wants youth who are grappling with violence and poverty to know that there are more paths open to them than they imagine.
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Anna Wolfe became a reporter to tell the stories of those who had little to nothing. Her reporting has uncovered massive corruption in a state that can scarcely afford it.
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Real community activists continue to shine a light on problems well after the media has packed up their equipment and moved on to the next story. Reporters should use the term advisedly.
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Insights Topics
This week, we’re launching a new column anchored by veteran journalist James Causey of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that explores health inequities in the broadest sense.
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Topics
Since my "Cultivating a Community" project on the garden was published in 2018, "We Got This" has grown tremendously.
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More than half the children in Milwaukee's troubled 53206 ZIP code are living in poverty. It's an area where unemployment is widespread and others are trapped in low-wage jobs.
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James Causey returned to his old neighborhood in Milwaukee to take a sustained look at how young people are impacted by trauma, and how a community garden is trying to buffer against that damage.