A veteran journalist who has been a Detroiter for most of his career fills a six-week-old vacancy at the Michigan Chronicle, a weekly founded in 1936.
"I can’t imagine a better time to be senior editor . . . as we move forward toward this New Detroit, wherever it’s headed," Keith Owens says Wednesday in an introductory column.
Owens returns to the paper where he was senior editor from 2003-06. He succeeds Bankole Thompson, who resigned June 24 after nine years as senior editor, citing clashes with publisher Hiram E. Jackson, owner of Detroit-based Real Times Inc.
In addition to his first stint at the Chronicle, Owens has worked at the Denver Post, Los Angeles Times, Ann Arbor News, Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel and Detroit Free Press. While at the Freep from 1993-2000, he also was a nationally syndicated columnist for three years.
But wait, there's more: Owens has written four published fiction and nonfiction books and was communications director at the Wayne County treasurer's office from 2006-11.
Owens and his wife, self-employed business writing consultant Pamela Hillard Owens, live in the Boston Edison neighborhood, two blocks north of the Atkinson Avenue Historic District of Detroit.
In his "I'm back" column, the returnee drops hints of a new era at the nearly eight-decade-old publication:
Expect to see the Chronicle shed the terms "weekly" and "paper" as it continues to shift direction toward a more timely digital-first news and information delivery service.
He's not yet on the staff page, which lists managing editor Jason Flowers and digital editor AJ Williams, the shop's social media manager,
Keith Owens reunited with past colleagues July 12 at a Belle Isle picnic marking the 20th anniversary of a strike while he was at the Free Press.
(Facebook photo by Barbara Barefield)
Owens, a jazz and blues guitarist, also riffs Wednesday on "my adopted home of Detroit" at a pivotal time and on his vision of aggressive, advocacy journalism:
Ever since I moved to this city [in 1993], I have been hearing about this Detroit Renaissance that would be here any day now. Just wait. It’s coming. No, really. Honest. Wait for it. But it never came.
Until now. For better and/or for worse (much remains to be seen), that Renaissance that Detroiters have been hearing so much about – and bitterly laughing about for years as the worst kind of inside joke – is at the front door and knocking with a sledge hammer. Blight removal is now actually happening, and it’s happening fast. And there’s actually new construction – in Detroit! That side of town we used to know as the Cass Corridor is now called Midtown and, well, let’s just agree that it’s a bit different from what we remember.
And then there’s downtown, and the M-1 rail line, and there’s white people all over the place (seems like) talking about how cool Detroit is and they’re filling up all these clubs and coffee houses and yoga studios and . . .
And then there’s the rest of Detroit. In so many ways same as it ever was; still tough as a room full of pit bulls, still mostly black, still mostly poor, and still very much struggling and wondering how much longer we’re going to have to live like this. How much longer will the schools be like this? How much longer will all this violence continue? When will the buses ever run on time? When do we get our New Detroit? . . .
And so the challenge for the Michigan Chronicle . . . is to not simply report on the journey but to actively – sometimes aggressively – participate in it. Grab that steering wheel and yank it hard. Because the history of the Michigan Chronicle, and the history of the black press, is not a history of standing on the sidelines, nor is it a history of impartiality.
On "Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson," a WDET program, Owens discussed his new job and an office relocation. He and the host were Freep editorial board colleagues last decade.
The Chronicle plans to move from Ledyard Street alongside Cass Park to a site the former Paradise Valley neighborhood closer to downtown, the editor told Henderson without timing or location details.
"Owens hopes [the move] will bring back other black businesses to what was once a business district and entertainment center for Detroit’s African American population," the station says in a summary of the 18-minute discussion Wednesday morning. (A full audio file is here.)
