The writer, a Los Angeles freelancer and former Detroit News business reporter, writes a blog, Starkman Approved. This column first appeared in his blog.
By Eric Starkman
Some 36 years ago, one of the most consequential and damaging decisions in American journalism took place in downtown Detroit: the merging of the business operations of the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News.
For years, the two newspapers had been locked in an internecine battle to put the other out of business. The result was not weakness, but journalistic strength. Each publication punched well above its weight. At their peaks, both ranked among the top ten newspapers nationally in circulation and maintained two distinct editorial voices. The Free Press was unabashedly liberal. The News was conservative. Detroit readers benefited from the tension.
That pluralism began to unravel in the mid-1980s. In 1986, Gannett — then a highly profitable newspaper chain known more for scale than journalistic ambition — acquired the Detroit News. Gannett later persuaded the Free Press to declare itself a failing newspaper, allowing the rivals to seek an antitrust exemption and merge their business operations under a so called joint operating agreement (JOA). The Reagan administration shamefully approved the deal.
Opposition to the merger was fierce and remains one of Detroit’s prouder civic moments. Local business leaders and politicians pushed back. Even Coleman Young, the city’s combative mayor who had long served as a punching bag for both publications, railed against the arrangement.
Crippling Moves
Once the joint operating agreement was in place, Gannett moved quickly to weaken the News. It eliminated the paper’s morning edition — a crippling blow for what had already been an afternoon publication — and ceded control of most of the lucrative Sunday newspaper to the Free Press. Editors imported from other Gannett properties were derided in the newsroom as “Gannettoids.”
The experience was personally painful. I had been hired by the management team that preceded Gannett’s takeover — people who believed enough in my abilities to sponsor my green card and convince the U.S. government that I possessed unusual talent. The cultural and editorial shift was abrupt and demoralizing, and it gave me a lasting appreciation for the value and importance of journalism unions as a counterweight to corporate interests that harm the profession.
The damage went beyond morale. The News lost a significant share of its circulation, yet the promised efficiencies never materialized. Despite enjoying an effective business monopoly, the joint operation continued to lose money. Gannett tripled advertising rates, alienating car dealers and other core advertisers, and provoked a bitter strike in a city that was still overwhelmingly union.
The final blow came in 2005, when Gannett acquired the Detroit Free Press from Knight Ridder in a series of transactions involving Gannett, Knight Ridder, and MediaNews Group. Once Gannett controlled the Free Press, its strategic preference became unmistakable. In 2019, the company chose to keep the Free Press and sold the Detroit News to Digital First Media, controlled by Alden Global Capital — a hedge fund widely regarded as a leader in journalism’s race to the bottom.
By any reasonable measure, this should have been the end.
It wasn’t.
The Detroit News proved to be the local publication that could.
Defying the Odds
Statistically, the Detroit News should be dead. Joint operating agreements were intended to preserve competing editorial voices, but in practice they rarely did.
At their peak, nearly 30 JOAs existed nationwide, Crain’s Detroit Business reported. Today, only two remain: one in Detroit and one in Las Vegas, where the arrangement survives only because of court orders as the Las Vegas Sun and the Las Vegas Review-Journal continue to argue over its future.
“In a number of places where JOAs have been dissolved, over time, the second of the papers has just plain closed,” Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst and news transformation leader at the Poynter Institute, told Crain’s. “It’s hard enough to make one newspaper work unless it’s the biggest of cities in the world.”
Despite those odds, the Detroit News remains the Motor City’s superior newspaper and Michigan’s best publication in its class. For three consecutive years, it has been named “Newspaper of the Year” by the Michigan Press Association.
Momentous Changes
With its 36-year joint operating agreement with the Free Press expiring within hours of this posting, the News appears poised to make meaningful changes. Editor and Publisher Gary Miles disclosed on Friday a series of “momentous” developments, including the return of a Sunday print edition fully under the News’ control beginning January 18.
“It will be the first time since 1989 that you will get a Sunday Detroit News filled entirely with content written or chosen by our staff,” Miles wrote in a message to readers. “That means you’ll see more of the writers, columnists, features and advertisers that you’ve come to know and trust. All of that content will flow online as well, so even digital-only readers will find more to love on Sunday.”
Miles also said the News plans to redesign its website, mobile app, eNewspaper, and print edition as it seeks to leverage its business independence and find “fresh ways to deliver the information you have come to know and trust.”
Reviving a Sunday print edition is a contrarian move in an industry still retreating from print. Today, the Free Press’ Sunday circulation stands at roughly 62,461. When I worked at the News in the mid-1980s, I recall its Sunday circulation exceeding 700,000, compared with more than 600,000 for the Free Press. Both papers enjoyed statewide distribution.
Gary Miles
Miles also published his email address and invited reader feedback — a notable choice at a time when many journalists instead direct readers to follow them on social media platforms such as Twitter, used by fewer than 30 percent of U.S. adults.
Nearly Homeless
The Detroit News’ physical separation from the Free Press began last year when Bedrock LLC — the real-estate arm of billionaire developer Dan Gilbert — informed both publications that they would not receive a 14-month lease extension on their shared space.
The News relocated to a renovated Albert Kahn-designed building at 6001 Cass Ave. in an area known as TechTown, near General Motors’ former headquarters, also designed by Kahn.
As reported by Crain’s Detroit Business, under the joint operating agreement the editorial operations of both newspapers were funded by the partnership, which paid the News’ owner an annual sum beyond any profits totaling about $45 million. When the agreement was modified in 2009 following reductions in home delivery, those payments fell to roughly $6 million.
Best Local Newspapers
To be sure, both the News and the Free Press are far removed from the journalism they produced in their glory days. Comparatively speaking, however, they remain among the best local newspapers in America. Their coverage and institutional knowledge of southeastern Michigan exceed that of many large-market papers, including the Los Angeles Times, an ailing publication that neither covers nor reflects a Los Angeles sensibility, perhaps because it is based in suburban El Segundo. I’ve previously written about the L.A. Times’ decline.
Both Detroit papers continue to devote meaningful resources to auto-industry coverage. Although they treat General Motors with kid gloves, their auto writers still occasionally scoop national and industry publications with considerably more resources.
The Free Press last year published an award-worthy investigation into how thousands of Ford owners were placed at risk because the automaker botched recalls of dangerous Takata airbags. The paper also did strong reporting on allegations of age discrimination at Ford, which later settled multiple lawsuits. Those stories were written by Phoebe Wall Howard, who has since left the Free Press to launch Shifting Gears, a Substack newsletter where she writes authoritatively about the auto industry, interesting local people, as well as her passion for sailing. The News frequently republishes her work.
The Free Press’ JC Reindl has partnered with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy to compel the Michigan Department of Treasury to disclose documents detailing subsidies granted to Gilbert and other developers. In Michigan, democracy often dies in broad daylight, and Reindl has refused to sit idly by.
Reindl also demonstrated the value of deep local reporting in a moving feature about the closing of one of Detroit’s oldest Starbucks locations — a story that went far beyond retail churn to illuminate how crime, disinvestment, and neighborhood change quietly reshape daily life in the city. It was precisely the kind of reporting that national outlets and parachute journalism routinely miss.
The Detroit News remains stronger in its coverage of Michigan politics and strikes me as more aggressive in breaking news.
Strong Local Business Publication
What’s especially noteworthy is that Detroit not only supports two daily newspapers, but also an excellent local business publication, Crain’s Detroit Business, which has steadily improved over the years. When I lived in Detroit in the mid-1980s, Crain’s was primarily known for real-estate coverage. Today, it delivers unmatched reporting on Michigan’s healthcare, auto supplier, manufacturing, and professional services sectors.
That’s what happens when a city sustains three publications that refuse to become charity cases despite dwindling resources. As best I can tell, both the News and the Free Press remain staffed largely by journalists who are either from southeastern Michigan or have established roots there.
What the future holds for the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press is uncertain. That they continue to publish — and compete — remains a journalism feat worth celebrating.
