BY JOEL THURTELL
Thirty years ago, journalists at Detroit’s two daily newspapers were just waking up to the realities of the merger of their operations into one operation aimed at making a fortune for owners Knight-Ridder and Gannett.
No, no, no! How cynical! It was all about the poor, downtrodden Detroit Free Press writhing in its deadly downward spiral of subscription and advertising losses.
Well, if you believe that, I’ve got a cure for the corona virus I’d like to sell you.
The best discussion of that fabricated history is former Detroit News reporter Brian Gruley’s brilliant Paper Losses: A Modern Epic of Greed and Betrayal at America’s Two Largest Newspaper Companies (Grove Press, New York, 1993).
If you can stomach it, Richard McCord details the vicious war waged by newspaper giant Gannett against one one newspaper in The Chain Gang: One Newspaper versus the Gannett Empire (University of Missouri Press, Columbia and London, 1996).
But I didn’t call this meeting to puff a pair of books, seminal as each of these volumes is to understanding the media world in Detroit.
No, indeed. My purpose for bringing us together was to reminisce about a minor insurrection that a handful of us Detroit Free Press newsies undertook during that gruesome time when the merger of these two once big daily newspapers was taking place.
It was not a happy time to be a journalist at either paper. No end of sucking up to governments and politicians went on during the late 1980’s as the two media giants tried to persuade the US Justice Department to approve a union of two businesses that normally would have been forbidden by anti-trust laws.
For a few months, episodically, we published issues of our clandestine newsletter that we called “The Downward Spiral” in parody of Knight-Ridder’s flagrantly phony claim that the Free press was a “failing newspaper.” An Administrative law judge didn’t buy the ruse. Eventually, he was over-ruled, but not before Fee Press editorial page Editor Joe Stroud censored three of the paper’s cartoons for fear they would offend then US Attorney General Edwin Meese.
In the runup to the merger, the Free Press concocted what it hoped would be a Pulitzer Prize-winning set of stories that chronicled, supposedly, a weekend look at the crack cocaine scene in Detroit. It was fiction. A better title would have been “Nine Months of Prepping for 24 hours of crack.” A reporter and a photographer wound up hung out to dry for lying to the same editors who lied to readers about their cooked-up, botched-up project. The first edition of The Downward Spiral on November 20, 1989 exposed the paper’s charlatanry in an essay written by yours truly called “Nightmarish Quest.” THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL # 1 11-20-1989
The second issue of The Downward Spiral on November 26, 1989 featured a story by business writer Bernie Shellum that was censored by the Free Press. Hard to figure out why. Its lead stated:
Worsening business conditions are sending shivers through the newspaper industry, but Wall Street analysts still forecast a speedy recovery and robust profits from the partial merger of the financially ailing Free Press and Detroit News. THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL # 2 11-26-1989
The papers didn’t want to make a big deal of how much money the expected to make, because they needed to poor mouth the labor unions in contract talks. It was indeed prophesied that Gannett and Knight-Ridder would share $100 million a year in profits from the Joint Operating Agreement that combined their two Detroit papers.
The third issue of The Downward Spiral on December 4, 1989 featured a front page editorial by then Free press copy editor Mike Betzold entitled “We Have Met the Enemy…Us.” Beztold argued that neither newspaper management, union leaders, union negotiators nor the economy were to blame for what he considered a bad contract between the papers and unions. “We have to grow up, sober up and get to work on building a much stronger union,” wrote Betzold. THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL # 3 12-4-1989
The fourth issue of The Downward Spiral on December 15, 1989 had two lead editorials on its front page. The headline was directed at Knight-Ridder CEO Alvah Chapman — “Yes, Alvah, There Is A Santa — Overtime! Downward Spiral Says ‘Give Yourself A Well-Deserved Raise’ ” It urged union members to make the best of “a contract unworthy of the proud, hardworking and loyal work force” at both papers. It noted that managers took part in a Management By Objective program that awarded them bonuses based on how close they came to achieving goals they set for themselves early in the year. No such bonuses went to non-management staff, but Newspaper Guild members are urged to claim pay for overtime.
“Remember what E.T., the extra-terrestrial once said:
“O.T. Phone Home.”
A companion editorial written by me was headlined “THE ETHICAL DILEMMA: DO I OR DON’T I?” and noted that the newspaper merger got off to an ugly start for the Free Press with the News exposing an unsavory deal cut by Free Press editors eager for a quick hit in an ongoing story where the News was eating the DFP’s lunch. It was the scandal du jour of Detroit Police Chief William Hart’s embezzlement of city money. The News revealed Free Press bosses were so eager for a scoop that they guaranteed their sources in a contract that said the newspaper would cover their court costs if the sources were sued for leaking documents to the Freep. Offered the same deal first, the News smelled farts and turned it down.
The story was more amazing to staffers than to the public, because, as The Downward Spiral noted, “Hadn’t (Free Press) Executive Editor Heath Meriwether and Free Press attorney Herschel Fink lectured the staff last spring on the evils of signing contracts with sources which could financially obligate the paper? The meeting was called, it seems, because a veteran Free Press reporter acting alone, had guaranteed in writing not to reveal a source’s name in the newspaper. Editors were very displeased.”
“Ethical Dilemma” also called ironically for the Free Press to delete “the section on paying for news in the Freep’s 1984 ethical guidelines” after another staff meeting when “Executive Editor Meriwether was asked why sports columnist Mitch Albom was allowed to have a business relationship with a source he continues to cover. Seems Albom and University of Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler co-authored a biography of Bo, and the columnist hasn’t stopped writing adulatory Freep stories about his partner.”
What did e mean by “adulatory”? The Spiral defined the word by noting that a December 14, 1989 front page column by Albom gushed about his business partner Schembechler’s retirement: “There goes a legend…What will Michigan be without Bo?…Here walks the ultimate coach… And the feeling is like losing an old friend…There goes a legend.” THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL # 4 12-15-1989
Planning for the fifth issue of The Downward Spiral sparked controversy among the Spiral staff. We had acquired an actual MBO — Management By Objective — letter from early in the year 1989. After crafting his summary of yearly goals, an editor had carelessly left the document where a non-management staff person discovered it. The staffer diligently passed the letter to members of The Downward Spiral staff. The fact of the leak was itself leaked by a loose-lipped Spiral staffer to a manager over lunch.
Management began damage control by putting out the false report that the MBO program had been ended. But there were independent proofs of the MBO system, including an explanatory “Friendly Fast Facts” note by Feee Press publisher David Lawrence helpfully explaining how MBO works. A hot argument over whether the letter should be printed in the Spiral ended with the decision to run it without either the name of the manager-author or his boss.
The letter was significant, because it acknowledged without using the term that the Free Press was redlining. It was favoring news about the white suburbs over news from demographically poorer areas such as Detroit. The letter said, “Let’s make sure we’re covering the issues that mat her to people as part of our goal of becoming essential, especially in the suburbs. (Italics added by manager)
The Management By Objective letter also verified that the Free Press had a racial quota system. The manager wrote under 5. Staff Diversity, Multi-Culturalism, Pluralism a) Increase the number of black and female…reporters and editors, through both hiring and training; at least 25 percent will be minority. (5 of 10 points)” THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL # 5 2-5-1990
That last Spiral is my favorite, first because it verified redlining and discrimination in hiring, and second, because it published the debut of a comic strip I wrote called “ALBIE and the PIRATES.”
That was a the beginning of my comic book writing career. Unbeknownst to me, the fifth was the last issue of the Spiral, so that was the end of my comic book career.
The Downward Spiral did not escape notice of the media. Former Free Press reporter Deborah Kaplan was by late 1989 editor of Detroit’s alternative newspaper, Metro Times. Kaplan wrote an editorial about the Feree Press and its ethics problems. CUTTING SPECIAL DEALS WITH SOURCES by Deborah Kaplan METRO TIMES Dwc. 13-19, 1989
Metro Times writer Roseanne Less wrote a feature article about The Downward Spiral. ONE STORY YOU WILL NEVER READ IN THE FREE PRESS by Roseanne Less METRO TIMES Dec. 13-19, 1989
