Who's Mike Wilkinson, and what's up with his snide take on Detroit's population loss?

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Originally Posted by Mike Wilkinson

Later this week, Detroiters will get a cold dose of reality: They're not No. 11 anymore.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110321/METRO/103210342/Census-to-reveal-Detroit’s-decline#ixzz1HFXz3qvX

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First off, Mike, what's the point of writing an article about census data when the data hasn't even been released? Thankfully, though, you're around to point out something that nobody in America knows... that Detroit is losing population! Wow. Truly, groundbreaking.

With that said, Mike, I'd like to ask you why you felt compelled to throw in the snark, "city versus suburbs" overtones that are causing this region to circle the drain. I particularly enjoyed the way you presented the City's decline in a vacuum and neglected to put the situation in a regional, or even statewide, context. It's as if you believe that only the City of Detroit's population is declining, while the rest of SE Michigan/Metro Detroit is a burgeoning utopia of population growth and success.

I am sick of reading stupid articles, Mike. Does the paper you write for realize that every person who leaves SE Michigan is another reader lost? Perhaps you and your paper are masochists, taking bizarre satisfaction in watching the hand that feeds you wither away. I don't think I'm being overly sensitive, but when I read your piece, I was left with the impression that you got some kind of joy out of the fact that Detroit is losing population. The Germans have a word for feeling pleasure from someone else's misfortune. It's called "Schadenfreude," and your article reeks of it.

If you and your paper want to keep some readers, I suggest that you write intelligent pieces. You want to cover Detroit's population decline? Fine, I'm sure there's a way to write about it in a way that actually constitutes "news." How about explaining some solutions instead of simply speculating aimlessly about what the "dreaded" number will be How about providing some context, that Detroit doesn't exist in a bubble...

Lastly, whatever your affinity is for the suburbs, you don't have to express it by sticking your finger in the eye of people who live in the city. If you haven't figured it out yet, if "Detroit isn't number 11 anymore," the suburban metro probably isn't either.

Just sayin'

I thought the article was pretty snarky when I read it this morning, but it's not out of the ordinary considering the source......

I really didn't find anything wrong with it. The most snark he reserved was for the appeal of the earlier counts that "delayed the inevitable," and I actually took that as a swipe of the prior administration. He said the suburbs are getting more diverse as more people move out of the city. A bit of a "no shit" conclusion, but I've seen much worse from much higher profile writers in this town. I didn't really see it as being divisive, in the white/suburbs v. black/city sense.

Other than that, I think it was an article-ish piece. 99% of their audience isn't on DetroitYes, and most people don't keep up with these things the way we all do.

I'm not surprised. Just another example of Det News and the Freep at their best....

Really, when is the last time you read anything worthwhile [[Except for the sports pages) in either of those two?

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Originally Posted by bartock

I really didn't find anything wrong with it.

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Well, I just have a hard time imagining the major daily in another city, writing about the city in which they are located, starting an article with a line like this:

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Later this week, Detroiters will get a cold dose of reality: They're not No. 11 anymore.

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Originally Posted by iheartthed

Well, I just have a hard time imagining the major daily in another city, writing about the city in which they are located, starting an article with a line like this:

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Yep, I can't either.

I left the state but still read the Free Press online every day. I was born and raised back there and am still kinda curious as to what's going on. I'm rooting for the state to pull itself together, although I wasn't able to stick around for it. I suffer from depression. Living in Michigan, with its unemployent and gray skies 75% of the year was killing me. Seriously. plus, my being laid off 3 times in 5 years. I couldn't hack it anymore.

If you are a running a city and get money based on population, of course you will try to delay the inevitable, if the inevitable is measured population loss.

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Originally Posted by iheartthed

Well, I just have a hard time imagining the major daily in another city, writing about the city in which they are located, starting an article with a line like this:

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You are exactly right about that. It struck me as well.

The other thing about this article, besides the tone, is there is nothing new there. Anyone who regularly follows the news is aware of the population loss and most are aware of the reasons behind it. Besides, the figures have not been released yet. Are we going to see a rehash of this article in a few days when the numbers come out?

It is obvious that whoever this guy is, he does not consider himself a Detroiter.

The Detroit News has been like this for at least 30 years, probably more like 40. It ties naturally into their ideology--Detroit's decline the result of socialist depravity.

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Originally Posted by mwilbert

The Detroit News has been like this for at least 30 years, probably more like 40. It ties naturally into their ideology--Detroit's decline the result of socialist depravity.

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Good thing we have a bigger and utterly more ridiculous daily that more than counter-balances the garbage we read in the News with the garbage it prints in its paper.

"Mike Wilkinson is a Detroit News reporter and huge Red Wings fan."

Big surprise. Huge fan of the hockey team, just not a "Detroiter."

http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/w...?bloggerid=232

He appears to have a Twitter and is apparently from Toledo. He's probably an OSU fan too, hoping that Columbus city proper overtakes Detroit city proper. He recently wrote about how the unemployment rate in Detroit is actually much higher than reported, in part due to 99 weekers. Must be trying to make everyone look bad. Who does he think he is? HOW DARE HE talk about us...I mean you...I mean...what are we mad about again?

No, I'm not angry. It's just another one of those stupid things we've seen over and over: where residents of our increasingly sickly suburbs puff their chests because, well, they're not as bad as the city they denigrate... and we all swirl down together...

It's the soft bigotry of low expectations.

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Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

No, I'm not angry. It's just another one of those stupid things we've seen over and over: where residents of our increasingly sickly suburbs puff their chests because, well, they're not as bad as the city they denigrate... and we all swirl down together...

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Dnerd, I was maybe a bit harsh with the angry, and I do think this guy is from Toledo. I'm not joking when I suggested that it could be even more territorial than city-suburb.

I also think, however, that there are any number of articles written just as poorly [[see anything the Freep has written about the effect of the movie credit cuts recently, for example, which is far more misleading and denigrating to the intelligence of an average reader than telling everyone to "gear up" for Detroit's population figures), and that sometimes the reaction to this stuff is a bit too...sensitive.

...and mwilbert is probably right about the low expectations. I admit that part of the reason I didn't really find anything wrong with it is because it really isn't much different than what we get from either paper day in and day out anymore.

I don't see anything wrong with that story in a publication aimed at a broad readership that stretches from Monroe to Port Huron and, as someone noted above, does not include many people who would follow the census closely.

Wilkinson quoted a number of experts and made points about black migration from Detroit that, again, would be new information to a lot of Detroit News readers. Any "snarkyness" is so mild as to be almost invisible. And to suggest that the Detroit News' right-wing editorial-page is somehow at play in this article seems naive. Nolan Finley has nothing to with the way the news is reported, just like the editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page has no influence on that paper's news coverage.

If you read both papers on a daily basis, you do see a lot of junk. But you also see a lot of quality journalism. One recent example from the News: Its two-day investigation into who owns the land in Detroit. The Free Press over the past three days has been carrying an extremely close examination of Gov Snyder's tax proposals, and what they mean for everyone in Michigan. Those are sophisticated articles that you cannot find anywhere else.

Overall, the two Detroit papers basically treat Detroit respectfully compared with the ways other big-city papers have treated their hometowns. When Carl Hiassen was writing a column for the Miami Herald, he poked fun constantly at southern Florida. Mike Royko made a name for himself being snarky toward Chicago. Jimmy Breslin ripped New York City almost daily. These are big cities. They can take it.

while I'm not a Mitch Albom fan, he by far is the best known newspaper writer from Detroit, and he almost never knocks the city. In fact, people regularly cite that pro-Detroit story he wrote for Sports Ilustrated last year.

The Detroit media, TV included, have plenty of faults. But they don't cause Detroit's problems.

Of course, somebody is going to come on here and defend the article. Or the newspapers. Or the culture that justifies our ongoing trip down the crapper. The defense passeth understanding by paragraph four, which would seem to compare Wilkinson with Jimmy Breslin. Har-de-har-har. Why stop there, Carey? Why not compare Wilkinson to Jonathan Swift?

I don't think I compared Wilkinson to Breslin. I compared the treatment of Detroit by the Detroit newspapers to the way many big-city newspapers have traditionally treated their hometowns. And I think the Detroit papers are relatively benign toward Detroit. If they wanted to go sensational here, they could probably sell a lot more papers. But they are actually pretty restrained.
Anyone who thinks the Detroit papers "have it out" for Detroit or are happy at Detroit's problems hasn't read a lot of other big-city newspapers over the years. The first line in Wilkinson's story just isn't that snarky.

The article could be worse, but it is extremely disingenous. It is interesting to talk about the shift of black flight to Macomb, once an almost entirely white county. 30 years ago, it was probably unimaginable.

However if you were to read this article and have no prior knowledge of the Metro region, you are led to believe, or at least left wondering, that the suburbs are still wonderful, thriving, magical, magnificent places. That does no service to the readers. His bias is clear - as is his residency.

On the other hand, if one were to write an article criticizing the suburbs and talking about their decline, all hell would break loose. It is still taboo to criticize the suburbs, despite the pile of shit they're in too, while the city is, as it always has been, fair game.

This article is aimed to please the smug, self-satisfied suburbanites who can chortle at the ongoing and worsening condition of the city, and reassure themselves that everything in Levittown will be just peachy as it always has been, even though they're fiddling while the cul-de-sac is burning. Got news for you that the News won't provide: we're all fucked.

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Originally Posted by DetroitPole

This article is aimed to please the smug, self-satisfied suburbanites who can chortle at the ongoing and worsening condition of the city, and reassure themselves that everything in Levittown will be just peachy as it always has been, even though they're fiddling while the cul-de-sac is burning. Got news for you that the News won't provide: we're all fucked.

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Well put, DP.

Wilkinson is Hitler!

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Originally Posted by Carey

I don't see anything wrong with that story in a publication aimed at a broad readership that stretches from Monroe to Port Huron and, as someone noted above, does not include many people who would follow the census closely.

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Okay, so if this was aimed at a statewide audience then wouldn't it have been more relevant to write about Michigan being the only state in the country to have lost population since 2000? Why was there not one single mention of that in the entire article?

Was the point of the article the same point of the "guess the city versus metro populations" thread on DetroitYes?

I am guessing in most cases, yes.