In 2000, The Detroit News had a newsroom of 300, Publisher Gary Miles recently told Axios. The Detroit Free Press had a newsroom of more than 400 before the 1995-97 Detroit newspaper strike, a former Free Press staffer recalls. OPINION: Stronger democracy is worth the investment The Northwestern study tracks “news deserts,’’ where there is no media outlet, as well as the rise of “ghost newsrooms,” where the newspaper is local in name only, with very limited location-specific news that is supplemented by content from elsewhere.īut even the largest news organizations that remain in Michigan have been hard hit.
In the past 15 years, a quarter of Michigan newspapers have stopped publishing and 58% of the state’s journalism jobs have disappeared, roughly on par with the rest of the country, according to Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative, which documents the state of American journalism. Today, the Enquirer has a news reporter and a sports reporter based in Battle Creek. It was down to seven when he took a buyout in 2017. He left the Sentinel for the Battle Creek Enquirer, which had a newsroom of 55 in 2000, he said. In the late 1990s, the Holland Sentinel newsroom had 25 staffers, recalls Robert Warner, a Sentinel journalist in 1998-99. The vast majority have one news reporter, one sports reporter and share a photographer and local editor with other publications. “My biggest point of pride is the fact that we are a teeny tiny organization, and we’re able to pull something like this off,” said Leach, who lives in Holland.Īnd the Sentinel is better staffed than other newspapers Leach oversees. RELATED: 6 strategies to bolster local journalism in Michigan That’s especially true of traditional print media, where staffing has shrunk considerably. This is Michigan journalism in 2024: While journalists are still working hard to hold public officials accountable, resources are stretched to the breaking point. But Ottawa Impact is such a big story and the Sentinel staff is so small - two news reporters, a sports reporter, a photographer and local editor to cover a county of 300,000 - that Leach feels compelled to pitch in.