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This daily news site, now in its seventh year of publication, scrolls the screen into a new era today.
We have new staff members, design improvements and a local partnership to fuel expanded content.
Our new team members include:
- Cindy Thieme, publisher: This publishing industry veteran has a management degree from Oakland University and an MBA in marketing from Wayne State. Her career includes positions with Disney Publishing Worldwide, TV Guide and a decade with Conde Nast Magazine Group. She has been an adjunct instructor at OU since 2002, creating and teaching courses in integrated marketing, social media and entrepreneurship.
- Nancy Derringer, writing and editing: This veteran journalist has been a daily newspaper columnist in Fort Wayne, Ind., a reporter for Bridge magazine and editor of a suburban news site.
- Violet Ikonomova, investigative reporting: Our newest staff member has a broadcast journalism degree and more than a decade of multimedia experience at the Associated Press, CBS Radio, The Washington Examiner, WDET and most recently at Metro Times.
- Michael Lucido, photojournalism: The site’s first staff photographer and videographer has worked as a video editor and filmmaker. He earned a College for Creative Studies degree in cinematography and video and digital film production.
- Charlie LeDuff: The author and veteran journalist (New York Times, Detroit News, Fox 2) is a frequent contributor of high-impact investigative reporting and columns, with 27 articles so far this year.
- Joe Lapointe is a former sports reporter for the Detroit Free Press and New York Times.
Two other team members are editor and co-founder Allan Lengel, a former Detroit News and Washington Post reporter, and Alan Stamm, a contributing editor since 2013. His experience includes The Detroit News, Patch and communication consulting.
Staff content is supplemented by a set of regular Metro Detroit contributors, guest commentary writers and freelance journalists.
"We plan to do more investigative pieces and strong commentary," Lengel says. "The main mission is to deliver news, at the same time, we want to be entertaining and a fun site that people want to check out every day. We're in a position where we can be more irreverent than newspapers and TV stations."
New look and features
The most visible sign of our new era is a site redesign, launched today.
It features a fresh logo, new slogan (Real News | Irreverent Views) and an appearance designed for more dynamic presentations, smoother navigation and adaptive mobile display. Please let us know what you think by posting a comment below or by emailing us at admin@deadlinedetroit.com.
We’ve also begun producing special video presentations to supplement original articles, linked news summaries and photo galleries:
- “The Zip,” a weekly newscast hosted by Kelsey Hubbell, with real news and unmistakably irreverent views.
- “The Trip,” a relationship show where hosts Megan Slattery and Tracy Evans answer viewers’ questions about how women and men behave and misbehave.
Other regular features are a Politics Podcast each Friday and a Photo of the Day from Lucido every weekday.
Our active social media presence now includes Instagram, as well as Facebook and Twitter.
For on-site feedback, we adopt a widespread media practice by inviting comments from Facebook users. That change is designed to increase accountability and decrease hateful sniping.
A partner in progress
Deadline Detroit this year received support from MadDog Technology, chaired by Peter Karmanos, Jr., co-founder of Compuware Corp. and its past chairman/CEO.
The independent news operation is based in downtown Detroit and remains separate from MadDog. Deadline’s publisher is a liaison between the business and editorial sides.
Deadline Detroit was co-founded by Lengel and Bill McGraw in April 2012. We currently have 100,000 unique visitors each month, and hope to grow that number substantially by providing quality content.
"That growth reflects the passion of our readers, who appreciate a high-quality news site from first-rate journalists," says Thieme. "We hustle to break through the clutter and give people a reason to return."
In that spirit, we welcome your reaction to today’s announcement, our coverage or any other part of Deadline Detroit. We're always listening.
