Here’s an unlikely story: Detroit is getting a third daily newspaper to serve its ever-dwindling population.
The Detroit Daily Press will begin publishing November 23 in one of the most violent, run-down, economically devastated major cities in the U.S., where the other two major papers, the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News, have been struggling to survive, even to the point of reducing home delivery service.
In fact, that’s what prompted publishers Mark and Gary Stern to start the Daily Press. They say they hope to start other newspapers in cities where papers have closed or reduced service. The Daily Press will be a real paper too—a broadsheet with a staff of 60 and a daily print run of 200,000 copies—not some pity case. It will retail for 50 cents a copy Monday through Saturday—half the price of its competitors. The Sunday edition will be $1.
The brothers are obviously big believers in the continued relevance of newspapers—they came out of retirement to start the Daily Press, and have been in the news business since the 1960s, publishing strike papers in Detroit, New York and Minneapolis. So you might call them newspaper philanthropists. Or brave. Or deluded. Either way, this will be an interesting one to follow.
About the author
Matthew Halliday was the Senior Editor for the Spring 2010 issue of the Ryerson Review of Journalism.