Kelly Guillory's Pointers for Visiting Reporters In Search of the Real Detroit

This commentary is written for Deadline by a Detroit artist and comic publisher.

By Kelly Guillory

Your newspaper is widely revered. Culture. Art. Music. News. You name it, you publish it. People read it. They take your words more seriously than those of others because of where you’re from. No one questions the validity of a magazine from New York or Chicago.

Detroit is a city of conflicting images. Crime. Rebirth. Struggle. Hard times. Bankruptcy and an uncertain future. No one knows how to write about us and encompass a complete scope, so each visiting journalist picks a certain view for his or her article. We want to believe we’ll be fairly represented with each publication. We’re even foolish enough to hold onto that hope when we check the latest think piece about us.

Kelly Guillory with a papier mache mask she made: "When can we write our own story?" (Photo by Ashlie Lauren)

The problem is, this doesn’t happen. It’s through the journalist’s failure to understand our city, not enough time given to complete the assignment, or being exposed to a small area.

You either visit only the safe places or the crappy places when you arrive. You either only talk to people who look like you or only feature people who look destitute. You ask for a list of names and take it back home, jot it down, email the interviewees and ask them to fill in the blanks. You don’t double-check anything before you publish.

Waiting for Change

No one outside of Detroit cares, but we do. We’re failed once again.

When does it change? When can we write our own story?

I hear complaints from local journalists on Twitter. They have the whole scene in the palm of their hand. They’re available for consultation or interviews, or even a freelance job. They ask for a chance, but they’re never given one.

“When is [publication X] going to hire us to write about our own city?” I hear. Another writer for a local paper agrees. They huddle and talk and try to make a plan to change things for the better. But bigger entities ignore them and it all falls apart.

A famous city doesn’t make you an expert on the nation’s art world. Or music world, or culinary world, or anything outside of where you’re from. If you live in a major city that’s miles away from us, it’s impossible to see the inside scoop in Detroit. You don’t even visit here that often.

Lazy Journalism

Phoning it in is lazy. You need to reach out and ask local writers for accurate details. There might be something interesting you weren’t aware of before, that you can actually get the scoop on.

You know, a new angle. Something original. Something we haven’t read before. Something not involving ruins or not about the struggling black artist who’s homeless but talented. Or the generous white artist who decided to move here. Or the company that set up shop here but sell its wares somewhere else.

Repetitive gleaning births a stereotype. There are many who are in the middle. And even if they fit the picture of what you think people want to read about, it’s rude and dismissive to assign that person a trope.

Real People, Not Paper Dolls

It makes the people who live in Detroit look like paper dolls set up for your liking. A false understanding of an industry, a write-off of a scene, a limiting of our potential because you think our art and our music and our culture can never match yours. It downs us as a whole while it builds another city up.

Detroit has seen its hard times, but we don’t intend to remain an underdog forever.

We want to say we own our own narrative. We do. You just need to listen to us — and do honest research before you publish your next story.

Kelly Guillory is a Detroit painter, illustrator, writer and comic publisher as half of Ashur Collective. Follow her on Twitter at @kgpaints.

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