Words shot from a loose cannon

By Joel Thurtell

Fair to poor.

That’s what I think of the February 5, 2010 Detroit Free Press editorial about the need for a new bridge across the Detroit River.

By the way, those are the same words an engineering firm, paid by billionaire Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel “Matty” Moroun, used to describe the condition of the Ambassador.

I fear my judgment of the Free Press may not be harsh enough.

Fair to poor?

Nah, they flunk.

How else to characterize an editorial–indeed, a newspaper–that pretends Matty’s done an “excellent job of operating the Ambassador”?

How could they credit Matty with doing an “excellent job” of “operating the Ambassador” when engineers judge the span to be in “overall fair condition,” but its deck, over which thousands of tons of traffic travels daily, is in “poor” condition?

The editorial is an example of the sly sucking up to power that a newspaper can do only if its editors and reporters shirk their responsibility to delve into a subject and present it fairly to themselves and their readers.

Why, I wonder, won’t Michigan’s oldest newspaper assign some competent staffer to keep track of Moroun?

Or at least assign an editorial writer to read the reports of other media, including The Detroit News which shares a roof with the Free Press, or the Metro Times or across the river, the Windsor Star, which does a superb job of covering this scoundrel.

Then, whoever undertook writing such a screed for the Free Press would at least not be ignorant that the deck of the bridge the Free Press thinks Matty has done an “excellent job” of “operating” is in “poor” condition, and that no less a personage than U.S. Rep. John Dingell, who went to court to have the report released, has lambasted Moroun for his shoddy performance.

One wonders why the Free Press, so prone to head for court when it comes to uncovering documents about Matty’s crony, the disgraced former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, has not felt any duty to inquire into Moroun’s operations.

Armed with a little knowledge, such an editorial writer also would have known better than to construct a sentence that says, “Moroun’s prospects for building a so-called replacement span next to his 80-year-old bridge are equally dim, as Canada continues to fight that plan for environmental reasons.”

By reading its competent newspaper competitors, that Free Press writer would have known that it is not just the Canadians who have stopped Matty building his “twin” bridge in its very tracks.

That Free Press writer would have known–had he or she done some homework–that in fact the city of Detroit has evicted Matty from the very territory he needs for that new bridge but doesn’t own.

That Free Press writer would have known that Matty was trying to expropriate a city park through an exercise of theft known as squatter’s rights.

That Free Press writer would have known that Matty had begun work on his new bridge not only without owning the park land on the U.S. side that it would cross, but that he lacked the U.S. permits needed to begin the unapproved construction he had put underway.

That Free Press writer would have known that the Michigan Department of Transportation had sued Matty, once again the squatter, who had constructed gas pumps and a duty-free store on city of Detroit land. MDOT wanted them removed. Knowledge of the state’s lawsuit and a forthcoming judgment might have prevented  the Free Press from committing the foolishness of printing its claim that Canada alone stands in Matty’s way on the very same day (February 5, 2010) that a U.S. district judge ordered the billionaire to demolish his duty-free store and gas station because, doggone, he doesn’t own the property he built them on.

The store and gas station are integral parts of his now moribund plan to build the new bridge for which he lacks permits and property for footings.

Not just the Canadians, but the City of Detroit and the U.S. Coast Guard and now a federal judge have stuck a spoke in Matty’s hitherto runaway wheels, with a push from Congressman Dingell.

This is a prime example of the phony journalistic even-handedness that comes from keeping your reporters and your readers ignorant of facts that Free Press honchos for some reason don’t want to share with the public.

Problem for the Free Press: Others have done the reporting, which makes any editorial effort to sow murk and confusion easily rebuttable.

Why would a newspaper want to proceed as if inconvenient facts don’t exist?

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com

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