Best testimony ever

If you're not following this recent trial proceedings in the former Detroit cops' lawsuit against the mayor, you really should be.

Of all the salacious details, this is my favorite so far:

Ex-Detroit cop Walter A. Harris Jr. testified the mayor "chuckled" when the winter wind blew open the fur and revealed that the woman was otherwise naked.

Here's another good one:

Also today, a female Detroit police officer testified that the mayor urged her at a party "to take care of my boy" -- a reference to his friend, Bobby Ferguson.

"I thought it meant in a sexual way or date him or give him what he
wanted," said Officer Cathy Wright.

Online thoughts

Poynter has a new political website called PolitiFact. Seems pretty cool. Here's how its creator describes it:

The site is a simple, old newspaper concept that’s been fundamentally redesigned for the web. We’ve taken the political “truth squad” story, where a reporter takes a campaign commercial or a stump speech, fact checks it and writes a story. We’ve taken that concept, blown it apart into it’s fundamental pieces, and reassembled it into a data-driven website covering the 2008 presidential election.

The whole site is inspired by Adrian Holovaty’s manifesto on the fundamental way newspaper websites need to change. Adrian’s main theme was that certain kinds of newspaper content have consistent pieces that could be better served to the reader from a database instead of a newspaper story. I built PolitiFact with that in mind.

I've been thinking lately along sort of similar lines about online journalism, especially at the local level. For example, I'd like to see a good Detroit-focused Wiki. It could be a nice feature for one of the Detroit papers' websites. The way I see it, if you were reading a story on charter schools and, say, Sharon McPhail's name came up, a link would take you to a page with detailed background information on her. So you could see, among other things, that she presented Dave Bing with a "Sambo Award" for working with Robert Thompson on his charter schools proposal.

Bias and vandalism could be a problem, obviously, but there would be ways to prevent them. Reporters could write at least some of the entries, and they'd be expected to update entries related to their beats on a regular basis. (Reporters constantly find out things that don't end up in their stories. Wikipedia requires that all information be cited to a published article -- "no original research" is a central rule -- but maybe facts added by reporters would have special status.) And newspaper staffers could pre-approve user changes if necessary.

Then again, I spend a lot of time doing aimless research on Google and Wikipedia, and I suspect most people don't. So I could very well be overestimating the audience for something like this.

Apparently some crooked fuckers broke into my sea lab yesterday

I was hoping I could work downtown all summer without having my car broken into. No such luck. Someone decided last night to trade me his chunk of concrete for my iPod. Come back later for pictures.

Detroit's Dally in the Alley

... is happening Sept. 9 this year. In case you don't know, it's an annual block party/art festival with vendors and live music near the Wayne State campus (here's a map). You can get more info on the Dally here. I haven't been there before, but after attending Fourth Street Fair this summer (my photos and impressions of the fair are here), I'm pretty excited to check it out. Let me know if you want to come along. [via MotorCityRocks]

More good Michigan media news (plus, a launch party!)

Michigan doesn't have a particularly robust media market, so if you're into local journalism, you should be encouraged by two recent developments.

First, the Center for Independent Media is getting ready to launch Michigan's first serious state-focused Web publication. The center already runs left-leaning, investigative sites in Minnesota, Colorado and Iowa, and those sites have been breaking big stories, hiring "real" journalists and earning glowing reviews since they went online last year. Michigan needs a more diverse media landscape, and CIM has a great track record so far, so it's very exciting news. (Full disclosure: I'm in the running for a fellowship with the Michigan site.)

Also, in case you haven't noticed, Detour, an online music/film/culture magazine based in Royal Oak, launched in May. It's not focused on Michigan, but it seems pretty cool so far, and it could provide some good opportunities for arts writers in the area. Plus, its editor-at-large is Johnny Loftus, the former Metro Times music editor and Pitchfork reviewer. Loftus is a great writer, and he has the coolest byline in Metro Detroit. Even more impressive, according to his blog, he has an awesome Swedish rock bassist girlfriend. Clearly, the guy is a bad-ass, and Detour is a site to watch. They're throwing a three-day launch party in late September, so check that out, too. [via MotorCityRocks]

Good news for the Freep

I don't watch a lot of local TV news, so I was disappointed when M.L. Elrick left the Free Press to report for WDIV in January 2006. Elrick's and Jim Schaefer's exposés on Kwame Kilpatrick during his first term were some of the best Detroit investigative pieces in recent memory. So I was glad to see his byline start appearing in the Freep again last Sunday.

If you're curious about what's going on, here's what Elrick told me in an e-mail yesterday:

Two years ago WDIV contacted me with an intriguing opportunity. After many discussions with the news director, I made the very difficult decision to leave the free press to join the station as an investigative reporter. As much as I loved the free press, I was looking for a new challenge. And, boy, did I get it! The thing about TV is that the stuff you think will be easy is hard. And then there’s the stuff you didn’t even know about, which can be even harder! With some help from colleagues and friends, I knuckled down and tried to be the best television reporter I could be. By the time I left, I wasn’t the best, but I felt like I did OK. I won two Michigan Emmys and gained the respect of my colleagues. And that feeling is mutual. It wasn’t until I joined WDIV that I learned just how hard television reporters and photographers work. When it comes to getting daily news done, they may be the hardest working people in journalism. At the free press I look forward to using my energies to tackle challenging stories as well as help the paper improve its video journalism (which is already pretty good!). And I hope to do work that will honor the example set by Neal Shine, whose passing really made me miss being a newspaperman so much I began actively exploring a return to print.

Chauncey Bailey's Detroit memorial service and funeral Mass

... is 6 p.m. tomorrow at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament on Woodward. It's open to the public. I don't know if Cardinal Maida will celebrate the Mass, but either way, it's worth attending. (For more on Bailey, see these posts.)

A cool Detroit map

I hadn't seen this until just now. Seems useful. There are also maps of Royal Oak and Birmingham. (via Metroblogging Detroit)

Give us your huddled masses whose country we dicked over

I rarely agree with Nolan Finley, but I liked his column today urging Detroit to offer incentives to lure in Iraqi refugees. This comes after the mayor of Warren threw a hissy fit over plans to place Iraqis in his city.

Maybe it's just me, but after reading this essay, I couldn't care less whether Iraqis will take jobs from Warren residents.

Fourth Street Fair, Detroit

Fourth Street Fair last night was fun. I recently got a little camera, so I was the obnoxious picture-taking guy. Now I'm going to be the obnoxious pictures-on-his-blog guy.

This car-monster was huge. I couldn't really capture its enormity.

The Midnight Cowboy. "Nectar of the Gods," by the way, is a cocktail that people sell out of this house. They put a piece of dry ice in it, which makes it bubble and smoke. I thought it seemed dangerous, but had one anyway.

There was a lot of this, as you might imagine.

This guy was promoting some kind of satirical religion called Subgenius. He said the point of Subgenius is to attain slack, which is something that floats your boat. He asked me what gives me slack; I told him that's private.


On the way to the parking lot. Alyse thought this sign was hilarious.

At the News

Ah, copy editors.

In today's News

Two stories I particularly liked: Cindy Rodriguez's piece on young professionals who are fiercely loyal to Detroit (all of the subjects she profiles are Michigan alums), and Neal Rubin's hilarious column about the Detroit City Council.

Get depressed

The News is in the middle of a very good series on race relations and racial equality in the Detroit area 40 years after the riot/civil disturbance/rebellion. There's some surprising new polling data, and if you don't know much about the riot, it's a good primer.

The series also reminded me I need to man up and read The Origins of the Urban Crisis. From what I understand, you're not even allowed to talk about Detroit's problems until you've read this book. I borrowed it from a friend a few months ago, and I haven't been able to bring myself to start it -- there are too many other books around that are way more fun.

Jack Lessenberry's column on the riot is also worth reading, as usual.