By Joel Thurtell
I’ve had some interesting responses to my articles about Gannett’s redlining practices. As I’ve already reported, Detroit isn’t the only community given short shrift by editors at the Detroit Free Press. I’ve lacked input from Detroit News people, but have to assume their experience has been similar, since both papers are printed and delivered by the same organization. If one paper is going to skip delivery in Mexican Town, for instance, they both will skip it.
The practice of redlining goes back several years. I still haven’t traced its provenance. When it became official policy, I’m not sure. I came to the Free Press in November 1984, and I was aware that certain areas were being ignored by editors. Because most of our editors were transplants from other Knight-Ridder papers, I attributed the discrimination to ignorance of the local geography.
It was hard to maintain that excuse by the mid-1980s, though. I’d been hired as a reporter in the Western Wayne Bureau then situated on Inkster Rd. near Ford Rd. in Garden City. In 1984, we would report any worthy story in the Downriver, central Wayne (Dearborn, Dearborn Heights), western Wayne and even out in Washtenaw County.
By roughly 1986, though, our bureau had shrunk from nine staffers with an editor, five general assignment reporters, a sports writer, a photographer and a news clerk to three people — a news clerk, a bureau chief and me. Soon, the bureau chief left and I was the only reporter covering all of western Wayne, Downriver and Washtenaw. Even so, it was difficult to get stories into the paper. There was a clear prejudice against Wayne County stories and in favor of anything that moved in Oakland, where the money was perceived to be.
Recently, I was talking with a former Free Press reporter who recalled experiences with Free Press redlining in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Here’s the note this onetime Free Press writer sent me:
“As we discussed, the Free Press and News came up with a coverage game-plan more than five years ago to allegedly maximize their reporting resources. Basically, each community was ranked in order of importance based on their circulation numbers. The greater the circulation, the greater the emphasis on coverage. The ranking was put in writing for nearly every suburban community (I think it was a star system but not sure).
“In one discussion with editors, I recall reporters challenging the system, using the City of Inkster as an example of how the ranking was flawed. Because of poor circulation numbers, Inkster was among the lowest-ranked communities, essentially meaning that reporters were to ignore it. However, if major crimes or disasters occurred, reporters were told to cover the story. Basically that meant the only news about Inkster would be crime. When the fairness of that was questioned, editors never really addressed the question.
“How could they? The strategy perpetuated stereotypes, blatantly discriminated against the poor and ran counter to every principle taught in journalism schools. It was an ugly reminder that bean counters were seizing control of the newsroom.”
The account above helps me fill in some blanks, because I took a two-year-three-month “vacation” from the Free Press starting July 13, 1995. In other words, I was on strike and missed out on some of newer Gannett marketing stratagems.
Around spring of 2004, I was assigned to work part time on the Community Free Press, a weekly tabloid section that appeared on Thursdays. The CFPs’ success or failure was measured partly in circulation, but advertising was a very important factor. Originally, we had 13 CFPs that covered most of Metro Detroit. When they dropped to 11 in 2006, Gannett cut communities where there was poor advertising. That meant that if your community’s businesses didn’t buy ads, your town didn’t get covered in the CFP. This was true from the very beginning with the original 13 zones, but became more pronounced with the reduction to 11 zones of circulation which eliminated some mainly white areas like Royal Oak that you would have thought they’d want to keep. Huge areas of Detroit were out of bounds. Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Westland, Garden City and Inkster were dropped.
Editors also became more strict about coverage and non-coverage areas. For instance, Downriver: All along, there were nine communities where the weekly CFPs circulated: Allen Park, Lincoln Park, Southgate, Wyandotte, Grosse Ile, Taylor, Trenton, Woodhaven and Riverview. Forget Brownstown, Gibraltar, River Rouge, Ecorse, Melvindale, Romulus. My orders were to write about those towns only. Under the old system, I would — contrary to orders — write about, say River Rouge. But I was expressly forbidden under the new regime to write about any of those communities that were not on the list of nine. Verboten.
I broke that rule once in a while, but there was a real blackout on those off-list towns — except, as my former reporter friend said, when someone got indicted or committed murder.
I still don’t know to what extent this kind of redlining exists in other communities covered by Gannett papers. Do other dailies in Michigan, like, say, the Ann Arbor News, Grand Rapids Press, owned by Newhouse, or the Benton Harbor Herald-Palladium, say, conduct redlining? If it’s happening, I’d like to hear about it.
Newspapers like to portray themselves as guardians of the public trust. The Free Press sure played that tune when it claimed to be protecting the public’s First Amendment rights when it sued the city of Detroit for documents in the Kwamegate case.
Never mind the hypocrisy of Free Press owner Gannett claiming its employees, reporters included, don’t enjoy First Amendment rights.
How can an institution claim to be protecting the public when it intentionally ignores huge areas of its circulation area?
Seen in that light, the newspaper’s claim to be our guardian is a flat-out lie.
Newspapers are enduring hard times, or so they claim. But when they practice such flagrant and malignant discrimination, why should we care?
Next time you’re in Detroit, have a look at the old Detroit News building on West Lafayette. Engraved just under the roof-line are various pat-ourselves-on-the-back aphorisms generous to newspapers. One of them claims the News’ job is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
What bunk! I call it redlining, but in fact it’s also a form of censorship. If you live on the wrong side of the railroad tracks, the Detroit papers won’t even listen to you, let alone tell your story.
Redlining does just the opposite of what the newspaper claims. It sucks up to the rich and craps on the poor.
Or, to put a different spin on the Detroit News aphorism, what the dailies really do with their redlining is “comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.”
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
