by
The iconic Detroit News building on Lafayette Boulevard was always a sight to see. This week, both papers are moving out a few blocks away. It’s a time for nostalgia for a lot of us who worked there.
Since I was in ninth grade I wanted to be a newsman. After I graduated from Michigan State, I tried and tried to get into the News or the Free Press. But I was told to try back when I had more experience.
In September 1984, after a few journalism jobs, I finally landed a job at The News. Before I started, I got a call from Executive Editor Dave Lawrence at the Free Press asking if I wanted to come in for an interview. I thanked him, but said I’d just accepted a job.
I recall walking into the grand building. It was the feeling I imagined a ballplayer felt when he got called up from the minors and stepped onto the field at Tiger Stadium. It was the pros.
The newsroom was old school. A throwback to the old days; worn linoleum floors, old desks, rewrite men, reporters and editors who would slither next door for lunch at the Anchor Bar, or after work for a drink or two or many.
There were characters everywhere. Bruce Alpert, a New Yorker who covered Mayor Coleman A. Young, would walk around the newsroom telling everyone in his distinctive accent: “Yer one of the best in the business.”
There was Chris Singer, a reporter with slicked-back, jet-black hair, who spoke in a monotone and got annoyed when someone on the phone didn’t catch his last name the first time around: “Singer! Like the sewing machine,” he would say in a loud voice, with great irritation.
I always had to watch myself. I was often a prime suspect when it came to mischief. Once there was a picture on the bulletin board of editor Bob Giles standing with Tigers manager Sparky Anderson. I drew a mustache on Giles.
Within 10 minutes, two people asked: “Did you put the mustache on Giles?”
Mocking Messages
Another time, Giles sent a computer message to the staff announcing that his administrative assistant was runner-up for Gannett employee of the year, or something like that. I made a copy of the message and replaced the administrative assistance’s name with the names of people in the newsroom and resent the doctored messages to those people.
I was frantically sending them all around the newsroom, seeing peoples' faces light up with a smile, when I realized I had accidentally sent one of the mocking messages to Giles.
I called up our IT person and asked if it was possible to kill the message. He said not if Giles was signed on to the computer. He was. An editor in the newsroom told me to just ignore the gaffe.
Minutes later, Giles came out into the newsroom, looked over at my desk for a moment, and then returned to his office. He never said anything. I was never on his favorite list anyway. Of course, that didn’t help.
I worked some interesting stories over the years. The Oklahoma bombing. The public corruption trial and investigation into Police Chief William Hart. I interviewed Mayor Young for four hours on a Friday afternoon for an investigative story I was doing on his 40-year battle with the FBI and other federal authorities. I wrote about the Mafia and some of Detroit's biggest drug gangs. And I worked with great reporters such as Norm Sinclair.
On July 13, 1995, my attachment to the building was from the outside. We went on strike. I was out 19 months before I took a job at the Washington Post. It was heartbreaking to see some close friends cross the picket line.
From the book "Voices From the Strike" by George Waldman
Pair of Pranksters
Perhaps one of the fonder memories of picketing outside that building was the day fellow striker Bob Ourlian and I pulled off a little trick on management and the Detroit Police.
To our annoyance, the Detroit Police kept sending an army of cops, including officers from the gang squad, to make sure people could get through our picket lines during rallies. I complained to Mayor Dennis Archer, telling him the San Francisco mayor told the two major dailies there that he would protect their properties during the strike, but wouldn’t use cops to escort workers through the lines. Their strike ended in less than two weeks. Archer simply said he had to uphold the law.
So Bob and I drafted a fake flier announcing a rally the following day. I stood near the garage, holding the flier, knowing one of the security guards would grab it from my hand.
The next day, ranks of Detroit cops converged on the building in anticipation of the rally. But instead of hundreds of picketers, as was usually the case during rallies, about six of us stood around a fire barrel. The paper’s security was embarrassed and none to happy. The cops eventually left.
I still have good friends at both papers. And I still have some affection for both The News and the Free Press, and that old building on Lafayette that housed some of the nation’s best journalists over the decades.
