RACINE, Wis. — Racine County Eye, which has no affiliation whatsoever with Kenosha County Eye, is a Racine-based blog founded in 2013 by former Kenosha News employee Denise Lockwood (D). The publication has launched an aggressive fundraising campaign for its election coverage, sending multiple donation solicitations to readers while questions remain unanswered about an earlier emergency appeal for operating funds.
As previously reported by Kenosha County Eye, Lockwood sent a fundraising email in March warning that the blog needed to raise $5,000 within 72 hours and $20,000 by April 30. The appeal described the situation as an emergency but provided few details regarding the cause of the financial shortfall.
Kenosha County Eye later submitted questions asking whether those goals were met, whether the publication’s finances had stabilized, and whether its business model remained sustainable. No response was received. Now, new fundraising emails obtained by Kenosha County Eye show Lockwood continuing to ask readers for financial support through a separate election-related fundraising campaign.
The campaign, titled “Election 2026 Funding,” seeks to raise $15,000 for voter guides, election explainers, candidate interviews, election-night reporting, and related election coverage. As of Wednesday, the campaign reported raising $1,658 from 20 donors since launching on February 1.
In a June 17 fundraising email, Lockwood told readers that election seasons are when “misinformation spreads fastest” and promoted Racine County Eye’s reporting standards before asking recipients to make a tax-deductible donation. Three days later, another fundraising email urged readers to contribute, arguing that a donation could be “the difference between your neighbors finding misinformation or the truth before they head to vote.”
Then, on June 24, Lockwood sent yet another appeal titled “The lies are free,” telling readers that misinformation is easy to produce and that “real journalism” requires financial support. The email again requested tax-deductible donations.
The fundraising page describes the project as supporting “nonpartisan” voter guides and election explainers. It further states that donations are tax-deductible through a fiscal sponsorship arrangement involving Report for America and The GroundTruth Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
The arrangement appears lawful on its face. However, some readers have questioned whether a publication that many perceive as politically left-leaning should be marketed as nonpartisan while soliciting tax-deductible donations for election coverage.
Lockwood has publicly aligned herself with Democratic and progressive causes over the years, and critics have frequently accused Racine County Eye of presenting news through a liberal lens. The publication, meanwhile, maintains that its voter guides and election reporting are nonpartisan and that donors have no influence over editorial decisions.
The issue is not necessarily whether the fundraising structure is legal. Rather, it is whether readers accept the claim that the publication’s election coverage is politically neutral.
That question becomes particularly relevant when the same publication is repeatedly asking readers to financially support election reporting while characterizing competing information sources as misinformation and presenting itself as a trusted alternative.
The situation also stands in contrast to Kenosha County Eye, which continues to add paid subscribers weekly and has only limited advertising inventory remaining. Rather than relying on tax-deductible fundraising campaigns, Kenosha County Eye has largely grown through subscriber support and commercial advertising.
As the donation requests continue arriving in readers’ inboxes, key questions remain unanswered. Did Racine County Eye meet the emergency fundraising goals it publicly announced? Is the publication financially stable? And if its election coverage is as widely trusted as the fundraising emails suggest, why has it become necessary to repeatedly solicit donations from readers?
For now, the fundraising campaign continues. The answers do not.
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2 Responses
Scammer
Looks like the free market will decide