Héctor Colón speaks with journalist and author Meg Kissinger in episode eight of our second season

Meg Kissinger
Journalist, Author of “While You Were Out”

Meg Kissinger spent more than two decades traveling across the country writing about America’s mental health system for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Her work on the abysmal housing conditions of people with chronic mental illness led to the creation of more than 600 new housing units in Milwaukee. She has been honored with two George Polk awards, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel.

In 2009, Kissinger and Susanne Rust were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting for their work uncovering the government’s failure to protect the public from dangerous chemicals in everyday products. Those stories won the Oakes Award and the National Journalism Award for Public Service.

Before coming to Milwaukee, Kissinger covered criminal and civil courts for The Cincinnati Post and was a general assignment reporter at the Watertown (NY) Daily Times. She was named Wisconsin Watchdog of the Year in 2015. Meg has consulted on projects for Frontline, ProPublica, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Seattle Times and the Solutions Journalism Network, among others.

Kissinger teaches investigative reporting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and was a visiting professor at DePauw University, her alma mater.