Special Projects

EAST SANDWICH, Massachusetts — Ken Perry has been a tugboat captain for over 30 years. Throughout the decades, Ken has experienced the other side of the world, ‘The Perfect Storm’ and the loss of a fellow fisherman. He says, if he has learned one thing at sea, it is that family matters most. So, when […]

Lifelong New Bedford resident Andrew Bois found passion in serving his community through safety and scallops. For the last 30 of his 55 years, Bois has been working as a New Bedford firefighter. In 2012, he began managing one of the city’s most popular bar restaurants: Knuckleheads. “We have a lot of people that work […]

Knuckleheads is one of the last few remaining fishermen’s bars found close to the New Bedford harbor. Working men and women can be found eating and catching up with one another, often still in their work clothes and boots, fresh off the boats they fish on.   This was just the case for Benjamin Tweedie and […]

The Port of New Bedford is home to the wealthiest commercial fishing industry in the country. As the dominant port on the east coast, New Bedford has one of the best industrial working waterfronts with services that completely support marine industrial businesses. These shoreside services include fueling, icing, seafood harvesting, offloading, processing and more. The […]

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student journalists travel to Massachusetts to shed light on issues not covered by the mainstream media.

The single-vessel scallop boat owner is all but extinct in New Bedford. On a regular scalloper’s salary, it is challenging to pay the average price of $8,000 for a boat and the necessary permits, not to mention general upkeep and the cost of gas.   “No one really owns their own boat now—it’s really expensive,” […]

The sound of flowing ice rips through the mild New Bedford air. Captain Jessica Walker, 36, and her crew sit on the deck of their fishing vessel Legacy waiting for the nearly three-hour icing process to finish. They will likely need all this ice to store their catch. Their target: scallops. Scallops are among the […]

In this short documentary, Liv Weiss takes us to a Milwaukee underground music venue called The Washroom. Once a basement laundry room, the venue opened up about a year ago and has created a valuable space for the local music scene to thrive.

In the 1800s, northern Wisconsin loggers claimed to see a creature with “spikes all the way down the entire length of its body with a fistful of needle-sharp pointed spears at the end of his tail… fangs that would rival a saber tooth tiger and could rip out the belly of the biggest bear.” As […]

In this short documentary, Madelyn Heimsch introduces us to Dominic Dean, a high school senior who has always been passionate about food and loved trying new cuisines from a young age. Because he is on the autism spectrum, Dominic struggled with reading and writing, and when he entered high school, his parents and teachers came […]

In this short documentary, Joshua Groninger invites us into his house to meet his dad, Craig. During the pandemic, he learned how to brew beer and now his garage is the setting for this hobby that helps him ease his mind.