A conservative think tank in New Berlin has hired a television reporter and said he will produce unbiased journalism.

A spokesman for the free-market MacIver Institute said former WKOW-TV (Ch. 27) reporter Bill Osmulski would produce objective reports on subjects such as the impact of the federal stimulus package on the state. Since being hired several weeks ago, Osmulski has interviewed major political figures such as stimulus architect Rep. Dave Obey, D-Wausau.

Spokesman Brian Fraley, a former campaign aide to Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, said MacIver was seeking to fill a void left by newspapers and other traditional news media as they downsize their staffs.

Fraley said Osmulski would report to MacIver president Brett Healy. He's a former aide to then GOP state Rep. Scott Jensen of Waukesha, who resigned in 2006 because of his ongoing prosecution as part of the state caucus scandal.

"From a consumer standpoint we have to prove ourselves based on the strength of our product," Fraley said.

The institute is named for the late John MacIver, a former state campaign chairman for Republican candidates such as former Gov. Tommy Thompson.

Scot Ross, executive director of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, quipped that MacIver was "putting the market into the marketplace of ideas."

Ross' group has started a Web site of its own called WMC Watch, which he says seeks to bring attention to the influence of state business lobby Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.

But Ross, who himself worked in the Assembly Democratic Caucus at the time of the caucus scandal, said he wouldn't follow MacIver's lead in calling the work of his group "journalism."

"I would never disrespect the great reporters across the state of Wisconsin in trying to claim as (MacIver is) that propaganda is somehow news," Ross said.

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