"Hustle" may understate the pace of front-page journalism in Detroit lately, though that's what the Columbia Journalism Review goes with.
"Reporters for the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News have had to hustle to keep pace this year" with a volcano of dramatic events erupting onto front pages daily, it says in a lengthy look at local coverage.
Local writer Anna Clark, a regular contributor to the monthly magazine, suggests that Detroit is arguably "the newsiest city in America" -- a challenging environment for papers that "have fewer resources than they once did."
But the old dailies still do the lion’s share of important public affairs journalism, and Detroit is still a two-newspaper town—and that brings a little healthy competition to the bankruptcy coverage. “There are two major dailies in Detroit and we are fighting like hell to tell this story and break news,” said Robert Snell [of The News].
The Free Press has had the upper hand, dating back to being the first to report the declaration of a financial emergency in Detroit, and first to report that Gov. Rick Snyder had selected Orr as emergency manager in March. A week before Orr’s formal appointment, the team collaborated on a major Sunday profile, with reporters contributing from Florida, Washington D.C., and Detroit.
The Free Press also broke the news that Orr’s pre-bankruptcy offers could be for as little as 10 cents on the dollar to some creditors, and the paper was hours ahead of other outlets in reporting in July that Detroit would indeed file for Chapter 9. In a great catch on the Freep’s Facebook page, the paper also noted how the city appeared to have fast-tracked its filing to beat a planned pensioners’ lawsuit that would have put a stop to the city’s ability to file: on the bankruptcy paperwork, the date looked to have been scratched out and rewritten by hand.
The other daily -- which shares a building with the Free Press under a federally approved joint operating agreement that combines business and circulation departments -- has scored scoops as well, Clark notes.
She quotes Matt Helms of the Free Press as acknowledging that “coverage of court proceedings and the strategies for the battle over pension cuts has been particularly cut-throat with The News.”
Snell broke several stories about alleged corruption, a risky Wall Street deal back by Kilpatrick, and the battle between pension officials and Kevyn Orr. . . . Snell also broke the incredible story about Orr inviting Wall Street bondholders to take a bus tour of Detroit while under armed guard — but only after signing a waiver “indemnifying the city if anyone is injured or killed during the roughly four-hour tour,” as the article put it.
The journalism review article chides the papers for denying free access for nonsubscribers to past coverage.
One wishes an exception to the paid archives would be made for a navigable collection of the papers’ bankruptcy coverage, as it is an unfolding story.
