Of pizzas, pools and prosecutors: or, how the ‘Free’ Press (once again) muzzled itself

The Wall Street Journal‘s revelation that my onetime employer, The Detroit [Self-Styled] Free Press, had invited advertisers to participate in the reporting and editing process came as no surprise to me.

I worked at the Free Press 23 years if you count more than two years on strike in the ’90s. So many fine stories were choked off. The one that most people remember is the true story of how those Bill Day political cartoons about then U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese were trash-canned. Back in the ’80s, editors killed Bill’s drawings because they were afraid they’d piss off Meese, someone with a big say in approving the Joint Operating Agreement between The Detroit News and The Detroit Free Press.

Freep editors can find all kinds of reasons for spiking stories. Mostly, though, they never offer a reason. When they do, the logic is often contorted or nonexistent. One of the dopiest excuses I heard was given to me by an editor who had the sorry duty of telling me the bosses were killing my article, reported and written for the Free Press, about then Wayne County Prosecutor Mike Duggan’s illegal Super Bowl pool. My story was killed for a reason that stands as the lamest excuse for newspaper self-censorship I’ve ever heard.

If readers know of a more hare-brained, self-serving and stupid pretext for spiking a story than the one you’ll learn about in this article, please let me know. I first published my account in JOTR on February 3, 2008, in time for the 2008 Super Bowl. Given the special deals, recently revealed by the WSJ, that the Free Press doled out to Humana, Inc. and Target, I really can’t wait for the next Super Bowl to repeat this story.

Here it is, all over again:

Spiking the Super Bowl pizza

By Joel Thurtell

I’m no sports writer, so it was neat to think my byline would appear over a Super Bowl story.

What a drag that my first-ever Super Bowl piece failed to meet the exacting publication standards of the Detroit Free Press.

Yes, my Super Bowl story was spiked.

Personally, I thought it was a pretty good little tale. Nothing like Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick maybe or maybe not committing perjury with his love-crazed text messages that seem to suggest he committed perjury in court when he denied having an affair with his chief of staff.

My little story was no match for that, but still, it would have given readers a chance to ask what is and what is not tolerable behavior by a law enforcement official. Is it okay for a prosecutor, say, to break the law if he does it at home, with his pals?

It was back when I was drafted from the Free Press Oakland bureau to work on the Ed McNamara story, late in 2002. That was right after the FBI — with lots of media fanfare — raided the offices of the late Ed McNamara, then Wayne County executive.

Any story about Mac was perforce a story about his right-hand man, the onetime deputy Wayne County executive, Mike Duggan.

By this time, Mike was Wayne County prosecutor. But Mike was thoroughly entwined in the McNamara Band’s political ops, so if the fed’s spotlight was on Mac, it was automatically on Mike Duggan.

Hey, anybody heard about that FBI probe lately? They prosecuted a couple of people, I seem to recall, but they never charged anyone close to Mac or Mike.

But never fear, for I was investigating, too.

What, you might ask, was the editor, reporter, staff writer, photographer, chief layout person, chief of the copy desk and all around mayordomo of joelontheroad.com doing on the McNamara story? Well, it happens that for a couple years pre-newspaper strike, meaning from about May of 1993 till July 13, 1995, I was the reporter whose job it was to cover Wayne County doings. Of course, by the time of the FBI raid, I’d been off that job for, well, about eight years, either striking, running my used radio business, writing a novel and then back at the paper I was writing about Oakland County lakes. Why tap me for the McNamara story?

Well, they needed SOMEBODY to do it. The Detroit News was kicking the Free Press’ butt left and right with a reporter duo well-connected both to county and federal sources. That one-two punch was burying the Free Press, where one reporter, actually, one super-reporter, Dennis Niemiec, was covering … Oh, let’s see, what did Dennis cover? Why, he covered Livonia, he covered Plymouth and Canton and Northville and anything else western Waynish. He covered the Wayne County Detroit Metropolitan Airport (a full-time job by itself) and let’s see, oh by the way, he covered Wayne County. All from a desk in an office in a strip-office at Six and Newburgh in Livonia.

Somebody figured out Dennis needed help. Somebody thought of me. A guy who covered Wayne County eight years ago could do it again. Besides, nobody else wanted the job. One look at Dennis — tired, frustrated and beaten up — was warning enough.

So the News was eating our lunch every day and I was supposed to help Dennis turn this thing around. Dennis offered solace. He told me his “pizza” theory. Editors, he said, aren’t looking for real substance in stories. What they want is a talker, a story they can hype in the various meetings that consume much of their working days. A story they can chuckle about, joke about, make other editors envious about. A story, in short, that was like a pizza. Full of short-term flavor, high on fat, tasty, but not necessarily of lasting value except maybe to the waistline.

By the time Super Bowl 2003 rolled around, I was delivering pizzas, or trying to, by myself. The day after New Years, I was roaming around the bowels of the City-County Building in Detroit looking for some records having to do with county officials’ conflict of interest disclosures. I’d found them where county officials had squirreled them away in some file cabinets in the back of the county’s cavernous print shop. I emerged into a cold, blustery morning to see Bob Ficano, newly-elected Wayne County exec, giving his maiden speech on the steps of the county executive building. Standing in the crowd taking notes was Mike Elrick, a Free Press reporter none too happy about being there. “Where’s Niemiec? He’s supposed to be covering this,” Mike said.

At that very moment, Dennis was in the offices of Free Press bosses tendering his resignation. He’d no longer be delivering pizzas. He was going to be a public relations guy for the very county executive whose speech was thundering via the PA speakers up Lafayette Boulevard.

Boy, did I think I had a pizza, though. I’d heard from sources both inside and around the prosecutor’s office that Mike Duggan had a little pizza party of his own on Super Bowl Sunday. Well, I don’t know if he served pizza, but the main thing is that he and his assistant prosecutors had a pool. They bet on the outcome of the game.

You know, a Super Bowl pool. They’re everywhere. Why, they had them in the newsroom, in the sports department. Pools were and I’m sure still are a big deal at the Free Press and probably at most other papers.

But they are illegal. So says the Michigan Penal Code. Mike didn’t deny holding the pool. He told me, “I’m learning that I can’t relax and make a mistake for a single minute when you’re the prosecutor. But I’ve learned. I sent a twenty dollar check over to Focus Hope as a donation to charity and I’ve learned a lesson from it.”

Just because he said he did it and just because the Penal Code says it’s illegal doesn’t mean Mike broke the law. See, we have this thing called the “presumption of innocence.” For the pool to have been truly illegal, there would have to have been an investigation. Then, a prosecutor somewhere (obviously not in Wayne County) would have to have authorized a warrant charging Mike with the crime. But even then, it wouldn’t have been a crime. No, it wouldn’t have been a crime until a judge or jury had found him guilty of violating the anti-pool law.

Until then, any story I wrote would lean heavily on words such as “alleged” and “apparent.”

How can I explain this in a more timely way? Well, let’s think about the mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick. The media have been tooting the perjury horn since Mike Elrick and Jim Schaefer broke the most recent Kwame-gate story. And quite a story it is. But we can’t say Kwame actually committed perjury until a judge or jury convicts him of that crime.

Presumption of innocence.

Okay, so I was armed with all my “apparents” and “allegeds” and I wrote a story that might have gone down in history as “poolgate” or “Bowlgate.”

But the only bowl my story found was in the toilet.

I quoted Mike, I quoted a UM law prof, I quoted the Penal Code. I had a neat story about a prosecutor sworn to uphold the law sponsoring a gambling activity that admittedly was low stakes but that allegedly, maybe, violated the criminal code. No charges, no trial, no conviction. Standard journalism: I quoted people including Mike who said the pool took place.

Kind of like I imagine happened with the Kwame Kilpatrick text message story. Nobody’s denying the text messages, right? Into the paper it goes.

Not so fast. My story was written. It was in the computer. People were stopping by my desk to share a laugh. Great story.

The editors found the story highly amusing. A great read. But there was a problem. It’s called the double-standard, aka hypocrisy. People who live in glass houses and all that.

An editor broke the news: “If we print your story, we’ll never be able to hold another Super Bowl pool at the Free Press.”

So, thanks to Free Press editors, Mike Duggan dodged a bullet.

Kwame Kilpatrick was not so lucky.

Consider this: Kwame being investigated. That is the first step towards determining whether he violated any laws. Why is there an investigation? Because of a newspaper story.

Here’s a parting thought: Outside the newspaper industry, many people are legitimately worried about The Future of Newspapers.

At the newspaper, though, the big concern was about The Future of our Super Bowl Pool.

Contact me at joelthurtell(a)gmail.com