Twenty years to the week of The Isthmus hiring him as its news editor, Bill Lueders sits in the newspaper's conference room, chatting with Madison radio personality Sly about the publication's latest issue. It is a weekly on-air feature, but with a grin creeping across Lueders' face as the segment comes on, it is clear something is different this time around: his spot is being preceded by WTDY playing "The Open Records Blues," the editor's new song.

"It's a lark. … It was just a fun thing," Lueders says of the tune he scribed that was recently recorded by Wisconsin musician Peter Leidy and is now available for download on the Internet.

Still grinning, the Isthmus editor speaks highly of the collaborative effort, joking, "[Leidy] … picked up the speed of the song — my version, sung the way I had it in my head, was the 'Stairway to Heaven' of open-records songs."

A humorous recollection of The Isthmus' famed legal battles with the Madison Police Department in the 1990s, "The Open Records Blues" is as much a history lesson as a melodic journey into the newsroom. Lyrically, Lueders shares a story that strikes at the heart of press freedom.

"I need some information, but none come my way / I talk to the policeman, I talk to the DA / The policeman shake his head, the DA say 'No way. Just what we've been up to, we don't have to say,'" he writes. "So I got my own lawyer, and she filed a suit / Said 'Give up the information, it's right in the statute.' … Judge says 'Give him the information, don't delay no more.'"

Having finished his weekly spot on Sly's program and finally having had the pleasure of hearing his own song on the radio, Lueders recollects his legendary bout with the MPD.

"We filed two lawsuits. The first was Isthmus and the Wisconsin State Journal … in 1994, and that lawsuit sought records of citizen complaints against police officers," Lueders reflects. "The police chief denied it."

The ensuing court battle is almost comical in hindsight, with the Isthmus news editor explaining how the police chief theorized, "The department would have difficulty recruiting police officers if they thought that every time a citizen complained it could become a public record. He said police officers would be less willing to make arrests if they knew that these complaints would become public."

As the song indicates, Lueders, The Isthmus and other local publications did, of course, emerge victorious in the two lawsuits, with the second — which dealt with internal police complaints — coming on the heels of the first. A decade later, the impact of those suits can still be felt in Madison publications, as a greater air of transparency hangs about the city.

"It's because of these suits that we all enjoy insight into the way the police department basically monitors itself," University of Wisconsin professor of journalism Robert Drechsel comments. "It's really one of those things where you really can't understate the importance of it."

Lueders, meanwhile, has become a cornerstone of the Madison journalistic community, still at the helm of The Isthmus news page after two decades and widely respected about town for his relatively unique brand of investigative journalism.

"I do a certain kind of reporting that other people don't do — or they don't do a lot of — and it is reporting that is prompted by the experience, or the concern, of a single person," Lueders comments with a twinkle of pride. "And I'm not concerned whether they are someone who has standing in the community or whether they are just John Q. Citizens. Someone calls me and says, 'Here is an issue I want to raise,' or 'This is happening to me and I think it is wrong.' I'll look into it and I'll raise it. And I've got some pretty good stories doing stuff like that."

As The Isthmus celebrates its 30th anniversary, the publication continues to enjoy a veritable niche in the Madison media market, and Lueders' continued journalistic endeavors are no small part of that.

Having once driven a truck for the Milwaukee Journal in its pre-merger days, Lueders has traveled quite the journey over the past 20 years, and his latest musical endeavor certainly serves as a pleasant recollection of one of the highlights of that journey.