June 2024
Not often do we have an opportunity to discuss what we do here at Downtown Publications so I am taking time this month to highlight a couple of items about Downtown Newsmagazine.
First, once again the team that labors to bring you our monthly publication has been recognized for its work in a competition sponsored by the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
The editorial team at Downtown Newsmagazine took six awards at the annual competition for work in 2023.
Cover Design: Chris Grammer, graphics and IT manager, took both the first and second place in this category. First place was for his May cover illustrating the topic of school safety, about which judges said the following: “Gun shot holes (as if through glass) was very powerful and appropriate for the subject.” His second place design award was for the September cover relative to lead particulate matter fallout from local airports owned and managed by Oakland County.
Education Reporting: News editor Lisa Brody took first place for her May story on school safety. Judges said the following: “An in-depth reporting of the reality of gun violence in schools and what districts are doing.”
Environment Reporting: Stay Gittleman took first place for her September longform on lead particulate matter fallout from leaded-gas small airplanes at the three local airports in Oakland County. Judges had this to say about her work: “An extremely comprehensive, thoroughly researched look at an important issue.”
Feature Reporting: Stacy Gittleman took third place in this category for her April longform piece on the gangs operating in Oakland County.
General Column Writing: I took first place for commentary on the legislative push to expand the Elliott-Larsen Act protecting the LGBTQ+ community and columns on financial disclosure by state lawmakers and voting access in Michigan. Judges offered the following comment: “An interesting political column that puts Michigan’s present in the context of its past.”
While we take pride in being recognized by peer group professionals, the most important affirmation we get on a regular basis is the feedback received from local residents who respond to what we have produced here for the nearly 15 years we have been publishing in the Birmingham/Bloomfield area.
When we launched Downtown in 2010 we set out some specific goals or objectives we hoped to reach with each issue. First and foremost, we seek to provide local residents with detailed information on major issues impacting or potentially facing the local area. We tackle these topics through our storytelling that often runs 4,000-5,000 words or more. Hence the descriptive term of “longform.” It is an art that has basically been abandoned on the local level and we can understand why. We often times start planning for these longer pieces several months before you see them in print. They involve considerable research and then collaboration with qualified sources throughout the state and nation.
Our selection of these topics is a direct result of the fact that we are avid readers and we are able in many cases to anticipate important issues on an international and national basis in advance of them arriving on the home front in the local communities. Interested readers can find most of the past longform stories under the “longform” section in the index of our website (downtownpublications.com).
Yes, for the insider baseball fans among us, we do keep track of when we are able to tackle topics that show up in national publications or larger daily publications weeks or months after we have reported on an issue. It tells us we are punching well above our weight class, as the expression goes.
The Voter Guide for 2024 elections
Every election year we start receiving phone calls and emails asking if we are producing a Voter Guide and if we are endorsing candidates, both of which many voters tell us they wait for before casting their ballots.
For both the 2024 August primary and general elections we are producing a Voter Guide, although our method of presentation will be changing somewhat.
Traditionally our Voter Guides and endorsements are included with an issue just prior to election day and then also on our our website (downtownpublications.com). We schedule the Voter Guide to catch those who cast absentee ballots to provide information early in the election cycle. Now, with the most recent improvements in the Michigan election system, voting can start even earlier than in the past.
For a small publishing group, the Voter Guide is a major undertaking and consumes considerable time for weeks in advance of you receiving what we are providing in a print issue. The bulk of this work falls to news editor Lisa Brody and me, whether it is drafting relevant questions we send to candidates, processing responses from those running for office and getting this issue ready to upload to our printer.
Endorsements are another taxing undertaking, serving as the topic of nearly daily conversation weeks in advance of going to press with this issue.
On the local level, Downtown Newsmagazine is the only publication that still hews to the traditional role by providing recommendations on candidates appearing on the ballot, with the exception of the two Detroit daily newspapers.
We will still be devoting the same effort on behalf of our readers but this election year our Voter Guides will only be available on our website, a direct result of the increasing costs of bringing out a print edition that in some past years has approached over 40 pages of content. Printing costs took an enormous jump during the pandemic crisis and, of course, far be it for paper producers to back these prices down. Then there is the cost of postage.
In a couple of more recent elections we turned to the business community and were fortunately able to find a few sponsors to help underwrite some of the costs of the Voter Guides, but even then we experienced losses. And candidates running for office have for the most part turned to social media, direct mail and television so we can no longer count on that source of ad revenue to cover the expense of physically printing Voters Guides.
The August primary election this year in the Birmingham/Bloomfield area does not have a great many primary contests as opposed to the election slate facing voters in November.
Watch for further information as we get closer to posting candidate information online for the August primary election.
David Hohendorf
Publisher
