The Team - Welcome to Barron

A team of nine student journalists in an advanced reporting class at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies Department set out to explore the changing demographics of Barron, Wisconsin, a small town in northwestern Wisconsin. The Media Milwaukee students’ original intent was to solely explore the voices and issues relating to Somali immigration in the town. A few days before their journey, however, a national murder mystery burst Barron into the headlines, making an already fascinating American town even more complex. In Barron, the students discovered a town struggling to deal with change in ways that were alternatively jarring and full of grace. They visited a mosque, the high school, the city’s Somali restaurant and apartment complex, a citizen class, and other locales. This is the story of Barron, Wisconsin.