Each April brings a milepost worth noting: Happy birthday to us!
At a time of expanding media choices, this month's fourth anniversary of Deadline's founding is an occasion that we -- the site's journalists and readers alike -- shouldn't take for granted.
To say the city has changed a lot since April 2012 would understate it greatly, and there's still no scarcity of major developments virtually each week. In recent days, we've reported on criminal charges against 12 past and present Detroit principals and on the upcoming departures -- involuntarily -- of three popular Fox 2 newscasters.
Deadline was first with that Fox 2 news on Monday about a couple of the on-air personalities, as it was in late February with word of Gil Hill's death. Distinctive content this year also has included a Grosse Pointe South High School senior's views on racism in her community and a Garden City teen's account of being ejected from a Donald Trump rally.
We are proud that our coverage -- which includes politics columnist Susan J. Demas, sports columnist Joey Yashinsky and reports on business, technology, dining, recreation and weirdness -- attracts a steadily growing audience.
We're also pleased that a 2015 redesign gave our site a fresh appearance and easier navigation, as well as content that's easier to read on mobile devices.
We value your site visits, comments, content-sharing, contributions and other interaction. Our social media communities now have more than 63,000 readers on Facebook (up 15,700 since the April 2015 anniversary article and nearly 11,000 Twitter followers (2,800 more than a year ago).
This anniversary also is an apt time to introduce ourselves to newcomers and remind earlier readers what Deadline is about.
We post a mix of linked news summaries and original content, including commentaries, essays, videos and galleries. Diverse coverage is intended to inform, entertain, stimulate and surprise.
Up to 10 or so daily posts present developments in Metro Detroit government, civic affairs, business, culture, sports, technology, recreation, law enforcement and media. In addition to excerpting coverage from local publications and websites, we link to reports about this region from around the continent and abroad.
On to Year Five. Thanks for reading and letting us hear from you.
-- Allan Lengel and Alan Stamm
