Michigan got a November surprise. Some of its newspaper readers apparently didn’t get the news.
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) stunned the political world by endorsing Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s open Senate race. In doing so, she probably ended her career in Democratic politics.
Admittedly, this surprise would have been more useful a month ago. By Monday morning, 2.3 million Michiganders, representing 31.2% of registered voters, had already cast absentee or early, in-person ballots. Whether Stevens moves votes among those remaining is a different question.
What shouldn’t be debatable is whether her endorsement was news.
In 22 years of involvement in Michigan campaigns and elections, I have rarely seen anything comparable. A sitting Democratic congresswoman backing the Republican against the Democrat who defeated her in a Senate primary, two days before an election, is extraordinary.
This was front-page news. A stop-the-presses moment.
The problem? Too many newspapers apparently forgot what the presses are for.
Among the Michigan newspapers I reviewed, only the Detroit News put the endorsement on its front page. The Detroit Free Press, Grand Rapids Press, and Lansing State Journal missed the moment.
Yes, there was online coverage. But it doesn’t answer the question facing someone who paid for an actual newspaper and expected to find the biggest political development in Michigan inside it.
Consider the absurdity in Detroit.
The Detroit News is owned by USA Today, formerly Gannett, which also owns the Detroit Free Press and outstate newspapers across Michigan, including the State Journal in the capital of Lansing.
They are also printed at the same facility. If the Detroit News could get this story on its front page, why couldn’t the Detroit Free Press?
I say this as someone who believes newspapers still matter. Wherever I travel, I make an effort to buy one. A small-town weekly. A big-city daily. Whatever is available. But why should anyone buy a newspaper that cannot deliver the news?
The Detroit Free Press makes that question especially uncomfortable.
Its opinion page endorsed Democrat Abdul el Sayed. As of writing, its website has an above-the-fold placement of the opinion editor’s column headlined “Haley Stevens torched her career for Mike Rogers, and it makes zero sense.”
An opinion journalist is entitled to that judgment. I write opinion columns myself. The distinction between reporting and commentary is real, and a newspaper’s endorsement does not establish bias.
Still, consider the priorities. The print edition misses the political earthquake while the website attacks the Democrat who caused it.
Is that the impression of independent journalism the Detroit Free Press wants to leave?
I have had a Detroit Free Press byline. I frequently appear in the opinion pages of the more center-right Detroit News. I also write a column for an outstate daily.
I know the game, and I know the business is brutal. Advertising has migrated elsewhere. Newsrooms have fewer people and fewer resources.
Those realities explain the pressure. They don’t erase the obligation to produce something worth buying.
THE SOCIALISTS ARE HALF-RIGHT: BAN REELECTION, NOT THE SENATE
We are repeatedly told that subscribing to a newspaper helps save democracy. Fine. But a subscription is also a purchase, and readers deserve a product that performs its basic function.
Before asking us to save newspapers, newspapers should give us a reason to buy them. Start by printing the news.
Dennis Lennox is a columnist, political commentator, and Republican public affairs consultant. Follow @dennislennox on X.
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
