Renee Hickman is a reporter for the Wausau Daily Herald. At the Wisconsin paper, she covers population loss and its consequences, including everything from examining the dearth of tax revenue on school districts to the difficulties staffing hospitals face during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hickman has covered local government for the Unified Newspaper Group in Verona, Wisconsin, after completing a Fulbright Fellowship to Ukraine, where she researched and reported on local journalism. She has covered agriculture, foreign affairs and other topics while freelancing and interning at the NBC News Political Unit and Bloomberg BNA. In 2018, she graduated with a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, where she worked as a research assistant at Investigative Reporters and Editors, was awarded a scholarship from the White House Correspondents’ Association, and won the school’s O.O. McIntyre Writing Award. Prior to her career in journalism, Hickman worked for several years in a variety of non-profit roles and received an undergraduate degree in history from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She is from Rome, Georgia.
Beat: Population loss and its effects
Many communities face uncertain futures with small local populations, and few jobs or prospects. Wausau is the ideal place for a population-loss beat because Marathon County is the geographic center of the northern part of Wisconsin, where the problem is most acute. The emphasis is on translating demographic data into compelling accounts of real people and places; storytelling is critical, from describing the challenges and impact on families to outlining potential solutions with datelines across the region. There are numerous opportunities for a wide range of stories off the beat. For example, examining the loss of tax revenue on small and geographically sprawling school districts, the impact on dating and social life for the remaining young people, and difficulties in staffing hospitals and health clinics.