Detroit officials to the media: Drop dead

The first sign this story was not going to end well came early, literally two minutes after I asked the Detroit-Wayne Joint Building Authority where a Free Press photographer could set up at their May meeting.

I don't believe any reporter has ever covered the proceedings of this obscure governing board, which controls all the office space in the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. Then, out of nowhere, I asked to be put on the agenda to make my pitch for the creation of a free media workspace in city hall open to every reporter and photographer in town. I wanted a photographer to come along so you could see how authority officials reacted.

I can hear you laughing already at my naivete (you can be so cruel sometimes!).

But some mistakes only become obvious in hindsight.

And I'm big enough to admit to what you already knew — that I went about this the wrong way from the start.

First, I described how the old press rooms down the hall from the mayor's offices helped us get a sense that Kwame Kilpatrick was putting self service before public service.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Then I suggested that public officials who have nothing to hide should welcome watchdogs outside their door. As if politicians liked reporters watching over their shoulders to make sure they were doing what they were supposed to do!

I foolishly saved the best — or worst — for last. I mentioned that a press room close to the seat of power could provide a safe space for insiders to sit and relax and have candid conversations with reporters about what's really going on in government.

Upon reflection, the response I received from a building authority spokeswoman should not have come as a surprise.

"No photographer inside the meeting," she texted.

"How's that?" I replied. "It's a public meeting."

She sent me some gobbledygook about the authority's photography policy.

I told her I would share the policy with our attorney. The Free Press' legal eagle, Herschel Fink, sent me a copy of the Michigan Open Meetings Act with with the following passage highlighted in red italics: "The right of a person to attend a meeting of a public body includes the right to tape-record, to videotape, to broadcast live on radio, and to telecast live on television the proceedings of a public body at a public meeting. The exercise of this right does not depend on the prior approval of the public body."

Translation: State law supercedes goofy obscure governmental agency policy.

So Free Press photographer David Rodriguez Munoz brought his camera to the meeting and shot video of my plea for a press room. To our surprise and delight, no one interfered with him.

The authority board members smiled, nodded, and accepted a letter signed by two dozen newsroom leaders from throughout metro Detroit supporting the creation of a press room for all media.

David and I left without a commitment, but with a glimmer of hope.

Again, I can hear you laughing …

NIBMY City

There's an acronym that anyone who has covered government has heard so often it sounds funny: NIMBY.

It's short for "Not In My Backyard."

In other words, everyone agrees that we need places to park garbage trucks, house prisoners and store nuclear waste. We just don't want those places "in our backyard."

Detroit elected officials, at least on the record, feel the same way about having the media working nearby.

Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield lauded the media as an "integral part of the democratic process" and "critical for maintaining transparency in government." Then she said the City Council has "no room to house the press" on the 13th floor, where the council is located.

Mayor Mike Duggan initially had no position on whether the media should move back to the 11th floor, where the mayor's offices are located. That's where we used to work until 2010, when the Free Press and The Detroit News were banished to the basement by then-Mayor Dave Bing, who presided over Detroit’s financial crisis which ultimately led to the largest municipal bankruptcy in United States history.

After I sent Duggan a letter signed by even more newsroom leaders — representing print, television, radio, online, mainstream and alternative media organizations, as well as Black, Latino, Arab and Asian professional journalism associations and publications — the mayor sent me a letter in which he said: "I fully support the ability of members of the media to work out of dedicated space inside ther Coleman A. Young Municipal Building." Then he added that the media's old workspace on his floor "has long since been integrated into the operation of the Mayor's office, which is currently cramped for space."

Duggan, like the building authority, noted that the Free Press served notice earlier in the year that we would not renew the lease on our space in the basement of city hall. Hizzoner also wrote: "I must say I am somewhat skeptical of your claim that the drop in news output experienced in the Detroit market over the last 13 years was caused by the relocation of a news office."

Regardless of whether Duggan was adding insult to injury, there is no denying cutbacks in the news industry have reduced the number of reporters covering city hall. He should know better than anyone; he has hired many of those reporters. And while it's hard to believe the mayor would welcome more reporters scrutinizng his administration and pestering him with more questions, there's no contesting that saving money is one reason the Free Press planned to move out of city hall after 70 years.

Still, Hizzoner's jibe conveniently ignores that reporters have gone from having a prime perch from which to watch mayors and other city officials to being buried in the basement where you can't tell whether it's day or night, let alone bump into Bernard Kilpatrick coming to hit his son up for tickets to the city's suite at Comerica Park. The current offices are so bad that a reporter almost died while working there.

Even if the Free Press signed a long-term lease locking us into our subterranean exile, there would still be no place else in city hall for other reporters or photographers to work because we are the last news organization that rents space in the CAYMC.

With mere days left before our lease expired, the building authority graciously allowed the Free Press to keep our stuff in the basement until they responded to my proposal for a free media workspace for all journalists.

Like the low-rent numbskull Lloyd Christmas in the movie "Dumb and Dumber," after the posh and sophisticated Mary tells him there's a one-in-a-million chance they could someday end up together, I felt: "So you're telling me there's a chance!"

I hear you laughing yet again, but now I can't be sure whether you're chuckling at me or Jim Carrey.

En garde

Two months after I launched my campaign to create space for more watchdogs in city hall, one thing had become clear: Even if the building authority was willing to give the media free space, the only way we were going to get back to where we belong is if the council or mayor carved out some of their space for us.

"Space allocations within leased premises remain under tenant control," the authority told me in a June 27 letter when they finally responded to my proposal. "As such, we are unable to grant your request for free space on the 11th and 13th Floors."

Sadly, it either never occurred to authority officials — or they just didn't care — that space in the basement other news organizations relinquished during the pandemic could be made available to the dozens of journalists who want to work in city hall. While it's obviously far from ideal, it's better than nothing. Today, that space is essentially wasted, filled with boxes of computer mouse pads and water bottles.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, the stakes in this standoff were high.

If the Free Press moved out of city hall, reporters would likely never again have a place to work in one of the most important buildings in Michigan. Those who would suggest we could use our laptops or phones to work in public spaces never got broomed when the building closed for the day or stood with me outside city hall when building authority security interfered with my attempts to question recalcitrant city officials by trying to remove me from the parking lot outside CAYMC while making the ludicrous argument that this city- and county-owned land was not public property.

I said at the beginning of this column that the story wasn't going to end well, but I didn't say it was going to end in tragedy.

The only truly bad news I have is for those who thought the Free Press was going to abdicate its role as government watchdogs just to save several thousand dollars.

We renewed our lease and, in the process, reaffirmed that we will remain On Guard.

That doesn't mean we're going to stop trying to get out of the basement. It does mean that, in the meantime, anyone who thought the Free Press would give up should beware that the last laugh may be on them.

M.L. Elrick is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and host of the ML's Soul of Detroit podcast. Contact him at mlelrick@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter at @elrick, Facebook at ML Elrick and Instagram at ml_elrick. Support investigative reporting and use this link to invite a friend to become a subscriber. 

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit officials to the media: Drop dead