The writer, a Los Angeles freelancer and former Detroit News business reporter, writes a blog, Starkman Approved. This column first appeared in his blog.
Some 36 years ago, one of the most consequential and damaging decisions in American journalism took place in downtown Detroit: the merging of the business operations of the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News.
For years, the two newspapers had been locked in an internecine battle to put the other out of business. The result was not weakness, but journalistic strength. Each publication punched well above its weight. At their peaks, both ranked among the top ten newspapers nationally in circulation and maintained two distinct editorial voices. The Free Press was unabashedly liberal. The News was conservative. Detroit readers benefited from the tension.
That pluralism began to unravel in the mid-1980s. In 1986, Gannett — then a highly profitable newspaper chain known more for scale than journalistic ambition — acquired the Detroit News. Gannett later persuaded the Free Press to declare itself a failing newspaper, allowing the rivals to seek an antitrust exemption and merge their business operations under a so called joint operating agreement (JOA). The Reagan administration shamefully approved the deal…