ABOUT THE DETROIT JOURNALISM COOPERATIVE
The Michigan Reporting Project is an unprecedented collaborative effort by nine news media organizations to provide probing and insightful coverage of the financial and social turmoil that has rocked that state.
The partners represent a unique fusion of mainstream and ethnic news organizations reporting via print, broadcasting and the web. They include Detroit Public TV, Detroit Public Radio, Michigan Public Radio and Bridge Magazine, The Arab American News, The Jewish Chronicle, The Michigan Chronicle, The Latino Press and The Michigan Korean Weekly.
The collaboration calls itself the Detroit Journalism Cooperative, and it represents an exciting new model for community journalism. Renaissance Journalism began organizing the cooperative when Detroit lurched towards becoming the largest city in the nation to file for bankruptcy on July 18, 2013. The financial problems were compounded by longstanding political, racial and class divisions that also spilled into the suburbs and other cities.
With funding from the Ford Foundation, the journalists produced award-winning reports to help residents keep abreast of developments, monitor Detroit’s bankruptcy and emergency managers, and weigh options going forward. The media outlets sponsored community engagement activities to reach and give voice to Michigan’s diverse and disenfranchised communities.
“THE INTERSECTION”: Detroit Journalism Cooperative explores Detroit’s progress since the 1967 riots
In 2016, after Detroit emerged from bankruptcy, the nine news partners decided to channel their collective effort into an ambitious plan to investigate the most-trenchant issues that have dogged Detroit since the urban riots of the 1960s. The seven-part multimedia series, “The Intersection,” examines seven critical issues: power, police, poverty, racial attitudes, education, justice and segregation. The groundbreaking collective effort launched in March and can be viewed at DetroitJournalism.org.
Earlier stories by the Detroit Journalism Cooperative are aggregated at NextChapterDetroit.org.
Renaissance Journalism’s Michigan Reporting Project is supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation. The collaborative effort has also received funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.