The Media Education of Phil Cooley

Crain's food reporter Nathan Skid weighs in on all the Phil Cooley bashing/overexposure lately.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...of-phil-cooley

Carping and jealousy - human nature. But isn't this stuff pretty much the reason Jack White left his muse of a city?

That New York Times article was great. And actually, I think the NYT tide, once so relentlessly negative, has turned for Detroit now. Maybe because of over-exposed Phil Cooley - and his friends.

In reality, Phil is an amazing and unique figure on Detroit's landscape, but he is not an anomaly. There are many other people like him in and around Detroit. He's a very visible guy so he's received the a lot of the media exposure and has become sort of the "face" of Detroit's urban renewal. But, I think that's okay. If people around the country look at Phil Cooley and say, "Hey, that guy is really making a difference," they also realize that it is possible for a wide-range of people to do the same here in the city. Maybe Phil Cooley doesn't enjoy being in the spotlight, but the fact that media sources like the NYTimes have focused on him does a lot for the way Detroit is perceived by the general public.

If there is any bashing of Phil Cooley it has to be limited to a very tiny, jealous and overly-vocal minority.

He has done a fabulous job, creating a hot spot, jobs and excitement, all in a so-called dead zone 'bad' part of town with no parking, secure or otherwise.

The real question should be: How do we clone him?

Meh, I think this isn't even a controversy. I followed the whole things pretty closely and was privy to some of the e-mail lists that discussed this, and I didn't find one unkind word about Phil, and all the criticism was directed at the reporter, who seemed to come to the article with the story already written in her head.

That said, I thought the article on Detroit's food scene at the Atlantic Monthly website was much broader in scope and therefore more interesting.

http://www.theatlantic.com/food/arch...eans-it/65301/

I think Skid's article really misses the point of the complaints, which was not against either Phil Cooley or Slow's. Instead, I think people were upset that the article made it sound like that before Phil the city was nothing but a food-less restaurant-less wasteland, which we all know is not true. And that his idea of selling BBQ ribs and beer in Detroit [[imagine that!) was somehow revolutionary and exceptionally daring.

Phil's place is good and undoubtedly good for the city, and Phil himself seems like a good guy, but there are a whole lot of restaurants that have been here doing business, and even expanding, all along and for many years before Slow's opened. That's the genesis of most of the complaints about the story. To make it sound as if those places don't exist, or as if those restauranteurs had pulled up stakes and given up on the city, is seriously rewriting history to fit the contours of your story and just made the writer sound like a clueless outsider to those of us who have been around the city and its restaurant scene for awhile.

Note that Cooley said he's surprised at the backlash -- he's heard it, too.

I wrote the MLive piece that Skid linked to, and I'm one of the ones who believes that while Slows is great, there are other places worth mentioning.

I even said in my piece that I wasn't "jealous" of Slows [[I'm not sure if Skid is implying that I am, but to be clear -- I'm not.) and that positive reception of Detroit is important. I was only wondering why the NYT -- again -- chose Slows to highlight urban renewal.

I'll stand by my thoughts on insider-hipsters, though.

I read all of these "backlash" stories and posts. To me, they don't seem like a backlash against Phil as much as they are a backlash against lazy, overpaid "journalists" who really ought to get back to working at Starbucks where they belong.