I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
A major reorganization of Booth newspapers across the state will reduce staff at papers in Ann Arbor, Saginaw, Bay City, Flint, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Muskegon and Grand Rapids.
What used to be freestanding news outlets will now be more like news bureaus of an operation based at the company’s largest paper, The Grand Rapids Press, according to the retired reporter who blogs at freefromeditors, and reporting will focus more on cops, courts, local government and schools.
David Poulson, Associate Director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University, says the move will undermine some the best environmental journalism in the Great Lakes region.
Booth has a long tradition of exceptionally strong environmental coverage. Even in the recent years of massive downsizing, this chain has recognized the beat’s importance when it allocated increasingly scant resources. Part of this is a function of audience – this group of papers serves a readership living near or strongly interested in the Great Lakes. Much of it is a function of hiring excellent reporters committed to the beat. At one time the chain had full or part time reporters covering the environment from Washington, Lansing and the dailies in Ann Arbor, Bay City, Muskegon, Grand Rapids, Flint, Jackson, Kalamazoo and Saginaw. Even the chain’s Detroit business bureau would take a shot at an occasional business-related environmental story.
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