Politics

Neavling Rips City's Storyteller For Slamming Metro Times, Critic of Duggan

September 07, 2017, 11:28 AM


Aaron Foley on the Steve Neavling's radio show on 910 AM Superstation.

Steve Neavling of Motor City Muckraker thinks Aaron Foley, a former journalist turned official "storyteller" for the city of Detroit, has stepped over the line.

Foley, an African American, is an author and former editor of BLAC Magazine.

Neavling writes: 

The city of Detroit’s new “storyteller,” hired by Mayor Mike Duggan during an election year, is now turning his attention to one of the mayor’s biggest critics – the Metro Times.

Aaron Foley, a former journalist, was hired at $75,000 a year to tell “stories of neighborhoods and their residents.” But his latest piece for “The Neighborhoods” took a much more sinister tone than his upbeat features about a midnight boxing program and a cricket field in Detroit.

In his slam piece, Foley chides the Metro Times for its racial makeup and its use of “the occasional unpaid intern of color” in what seemingly is a news story about the Metro Times possibly moving from Ferndale to Midtown. Foley, who used to criticize the mayor’s administration when he was a reporter, also portrayed the alt-weekly as financially struggling, and he poked fun at an ad campaign that featured neighborhood bars.

But what Foley omitted and inaccurately claimed raises serious questions about whether a member of Duggan’s administration is engaged in propaganda to discredit a news organization that has taken a serious look at the mayor’s spotty record on poverty, foreclosures, affordable housing, demolitions and vacancies.

Foley writes on the city website that Metro Times is considering a move from Ferndale to Midtown, and then takes a shot at the paper:

MT has had a revolving door of (mostly white, mostly male) top editors; its only female editor in the last four years was ousted following a clash with the paper’s Ohio management. News writers, copy editors, food writers and web editors have also come and gone, in many times only holding masthead space for less than year.

Neavling writes:

For starters, Foley’s claim that the Metro Times has “a nearly 100% white reporting staff” is untrue. Included among the relatively small staff are a black columnist and hispanic assistant editor. And while investigative reporter Violet Ikonomova may not be considered a person of color, she is an Eastern European immigrant whose grandparents were in the Holocaust...

Foley told me he doesn’t believe it was inappropriate to use city resources to attack the media – a tactic that President Trump has employed so relentlessly.

“Refer to any coverage on the site thus far,” Foley wrote me in a message. “Diversity has been a cornerstone of what we’re doing so far. And if you look at any of the numerous interviews I’ve done in the last few weeks, I’ve talked at length about my passion of making sure that all parts of Detroit are inclusive.”

On Thursday morning, Foley appeared on Neavling's morning broadcast on 910 AM Superstation to respond.

Neavling accused Foley of being the "minister of propaganda" by using city resources to go after Metro Times, saying it smacked of "Trumpism."

Foley said he was simply trying to point out that the paper should focus on hiring full time, African American staff.  He said in general, he'd like to see all types of companies focus on hiring more black reporters.

"We need to stress, we would love to see Detroiters hired in these positions, publications included," Foley said.

One caller asked Foley why he didn't first focus on the major dailies dearth of black reporters.

He said he's just started this venture for the city and hasn't gotten around to that. 

Metro Times had a black editor, W. Kim Heron, from 2006-2012. 


Read more:  Motor City Muckraker


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