SOMETHING, SOMETHING, SOMETHING, DETROITLazy Journalists Love Pictures of Abandoned Stuff (Page 3 of 3) Published August, 2009
| Climbing a hillock for a better view of the grassy wastes surrounding Jane Cooper Elementary School. If you move the camera just a few inches to the left you’ll get a bustling, well-maintained food-packaging plant in frame, so be careful to crop that shit out. Photo by James Griffioen |
Surrounding the Packard in sporadic patches is Detroit’s famed urban prairie—entire blocks of reclaimed grassland where the houses have either burned or been knocked down. A rapid succession of city-council proposals this spring have suggested using the land for an urban farm, an urban Christmas-tree nursery, an urban-rehab center, or the borders of a newly divided series of mini-cities. These pockets of downtown wilderness have become the media’s latest fixation.
James took me out to the grassy mound where he photographed a long shot of the abandoned elementary school. For several blocks on either side there’s nothing visible except waist-high grass and crumbling strips of asphalt.
“If you angle the camera the correct way it looks like you’re in the middle of nowhere—but then you turn a little to the right and there’s a well-maintained, fully functioning factory, and to the left there’s this busy office park. Still, people love to take this shot, crop it so it’s just prairie, and be like, ‘Look, this is a mile from downtown, it’s turned into woods.’”
The other problem with everybody on the prairie’s jock is nobody ever bothers to differentiate between which patches went to seed on their own and which had a little outside help.
“These blocks didn’t just fall apart by themselves, the city did this intentionally. They spent $15 million clearing everyone off the land so it could be used as an industrial park that stalled out.”
All the stories about Detroit’s many, many faults have fostered a backlash of journalists who decide to come in and write the “happy” piece about Detroit. The problem is that while there’s a wide spectrum of problems for the misery tourists to explore (the 50 percent literacy rate, the $1,000 houses, that YouTube video of City Councilwoman Monica Conyers calling the council president “Shrek”), the posi reporters are stuck picking from a handful of urban gardens and art collectives. From what I could tell, these types of places seem like they’re about two more interview requests away from pulling their own Stranger With a Camera.
I’d already felt like a pretty massive prick driving around devastated neighborhoods all day with an enormous camera hanging out the window, but I didn’t know from shitty until I pulled up at one of East Detroit’s community farms and tried to talk to a couple kids who were either loading or unloading some boxes of stuff. After staring at the mic clipped to my shirt like it was a severed baby’s clit, one of the main guys (I think) explained their position:
“Look, we get like 30 emails a week from people. What happens is they go off and write their story and nothing ever happens here except we get more and more requests. Now, like, Delta’s inflight magazine is contacting us. I don’t know what to say to Delta’s inflight magazine.”
Later I found out that right after I’d shuffled off with an awkward smile, the dude stormed into his house and fired off a furious email to the person I’d been driving with, accusing him of wanting a bunch of “Billyburg hipsters” to move onto their block. I can’t believe I got redlined in East Detroit.
For all the lazy shit the outside media has been pulling with Detroit, reporters in the city have actually been getting shit done. The Detroit Free Press won a Pulitzer last year for digging up over 10,000 text messages that led to the former mayor’s resignation and arrest. LeDuff has been harassing Councilwoman Conyers in the News to great effect while keeping a close eye on the “eccentric vagrant” beat. Having your hometown overrun by a bunch of smug assholes with their reductive analogies and clever little pat phrases while the paper you work for can’t afford to keep the lights on would be enough to send most folks groveling back to New York. But LeDuff’s fine with it.
“For some reason we’re disdainful of ourselves,” said LeDuff. “It’s a problem with the culture. I don’t know why you’d want to be in China or in Russia, because it’s happening here. We’re in the center of the empire right now, and here’s where you can see the collapse of the empire starting.”
See more slanted journalism from Motown this month on VBS.tv.
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 Anonymous, on Jan 4, 2010 wrote:
Rtarded | | Anonymous, on Dec 30, 2009 wrote:
The literacy thing is interesting, but a bit misleading. Detroit’s literacy rate only hovers around 50% when you consider functional illiteracy. It is estimated that 20-25% of Americans are functionally illiterate, whereas >95% are literate, broadly defined. A bit less shocking. | | Anonymous, on Dec 27, 2009 wrote:
Naggers annoy me. | | Anonymous, on Dec 25, 2009 wrote:
I live in metro detroit and I wish vice would do a happy article about all the fun stuff you can do, not the bad things about detroit, everybody does that. =( | | Anonymous, on Dec 25, 2009 wrote:
I spent a week in detroit, trying to fix my eastside houses. I drove around some and ended up in tears, I don’t know exactly what it was that got to me but its not overstating it to say that Detroit proper, south of 8 mile has been almost completely devestated by neglect. Driving around, walking up to these beautiful old brick homes, crying for no apparent reason. | | Anonymous, on Dec 25, 2009 wrote:
this article is foolish. detroit is a complete wreck and living there and making the most of it is either A) a labor of misplaced affection by the few white people who live downtown or B) a necessity for the poor who can’t afford to move out. any coverage of the city is better than sweeping it under the rug. | | Anonymous, on Dec 19, 2009 wrote:
Did I mention, Michigan sucks | | Anonymous, on Dec 19, 2009 wrote:
why do people from Michigan pronounce the word house, howwse.......Morons | | Anonymous, on Dec 19, 2009 wrote:
People from Michigan talk funny....hmmmm, they even smell and look funny | | Anonymous, on Dec 19, 2009 wrote:
Why in the world did Oklahoma get brought up when the conversation was about shitland Michigan? Yes, that was cowshit you smelled, on your lips after you licked my cowshit laden boots, ASSHOLE | |
| listenn2lsayer, on Dec 16, 2009 wrote:
I cant think of reporting on detroit without thinking about Michael Moore. It seems the topic itself is beyond tired. Clearly, the government is controlled by corporations like GE and Ford and the likes and the rich will continue to rich while the poor see nothing. vicious cycle indeed. | | Anonymous, on Dec 7, 2009 wrote:
What’s the point in writing this article and showing more "blight" photos without showing photos of the urban activity right beside the blight that you’re talking about. Don’t tell me there is a BBQ joint right across the street or that there is something of interest just a few inches to the left, show me by using a second photo. | | Anonymous, on Nov 29, 2009 wrote:
It’s sad to see the place I grew up in such shambles like this. | | Anonymous, on Nov 26, 2009 wrote:
Had to stop reading when you went with an incredibly ugly metaphor for the mic. I know you’re trying to be edgy, but there’s edgy and then there’s repulsive. | | Anonymous, on Nov 24, 2009 wrote:
Great insights, but the profanity and warped metaphores detract from your writing. | | Anonymous, on Nov 20, 2009 wrote:
This was such a good story I had to comment. Well done Thomas. | | Anonymous, on Nov 5, 2009 wrote:
Yeah but don’t act like it’s all good. Detroit is a shithole. Like you said those Dutch guys still got jacked for their shit. | | Anonymous, on Nov 5, 2009 wrote:
A Detroit photographer should do portraits of all the lost dweeby journalists and photogs who come there to shoot the blight. | | Anonymous, on Nov 2, 2009 wrote:
I think your article raises some good questions. In a time when we really need good journalism, very few sources are actually providing not only news, but analysis of that news. We really need this right now, but increasingly we are seeing at best one-dimensional, uninformed pieces and, at worst, blatant lies. | |
| anonymouse, on Oct 26, 2009 wrote:
i think i’d take oklahoma over michigan. no offense. | | Anonymous, on Oct 26, 2009 wrote:
I work in downtown detroit. One morning while having coffee at my favorite spot (the Coffee Cafe - try it if you’re in town), a man identified himself as a reporter from Israel in town to cover the General Motors bankruptcy. He asked me where he could go to talk to local business owners about the bankruptcy. I told him he could try the General Motors world headquarters which was a five minute walk away. He seemed shocked to learn that GM headquarters were downtown. He didn’t bother to find that out before he came here. I’m sure his article reflected the same level of insight.
Another story I read, I think in the London Times, described how sad everbody walking downtown was (which I never noticed before, but then again, as a reporter, the writer is probably more sensitive to other people’s feelings than I am), and how GM’s bankruptcy seemed to weigh down the town, and he ended the story saying that all he could do after seeing so much human despair was to eat his soup. Such symbolism!
I wish I had a copy of every one of these stupid articles and TV news stories (the reporters ALWAYS stand in front of some old factory dating from the early 1900’s). Detroit has been the way it is for decades, but now it’s news! This article hit the nail on the head. Well done! | | Anonymous, on Oct 26, 2009 wrote:
I’m not really sure what the point of this is. Yes, journalists often run in packs. Always have. Is that the point? Or is it that journalists concentrate on the negative? Another brilliant observation. And please, if you’re critiquing real journalists for their work, don’t use a French documentarian or a "Dutch crew" as an example. By the way, it sounds like you talked to two people for the story, one of them your own photographer. Before you attack reporters for their coverage, perhaps you should try a little reporting. As a journalist who grew up in Flint and lived in Detroit, I feel like the country is finally figuring out what’s happening in Michigan. I welcome the coverage. | | Anonymous, on Oct 23, 2009 wrote:
Did someone from Oklahoma just say something about Michigan? So that WAS cowshit I smelled. | | Anonymous, on Oct 22, 2009 wrote:
Maybe someone already pointed this out, but East Detroit WAS a city, they’re now called Eastpointe so as not to be associated with Detroit’s poor reputation, but that’s another story. When you say East Detroit, Mr. Morton, east should not be capitalized. More correctly, you could call it Detroit’s eastside as we Detroiters would. Good story anyway, and I’ve never been asked for a tour by a journalist... along with 900,000 others in this city... | |
| halzer, on Oct 22, 2009 wrote:
nice there you got there, buddy. did you stop to consider that oklahoma might not need the country’s largest trauma center since its citizens are putting bullets in each others skulls on an hourly basis? | | Anonymous, on Oct 22, 2009 wrote:
If the entire state of Michigan is a shithole then what is Oklahoma? I really don’t think that the state that has claim to one of the largest fresh water reserves in the country, has the no.3 hospital in the country(University of MI.), has the largest single campus medical school in the country (Wayne State U.) and The no. 1 truama center in the country (Detroit Receiving Hospital) and is the main conduit of goods and fuel from Canada (U.S. no 1 oil supplier and trading partner) could be characterized as that. By 2012 the state will have 5 med schools and the money from the R & D is already flowing to MSU, U of M, Henry Ford Hospital (no. 17 in the country) and Wayne. With good governence,luck and investment, we’ll survive not as what we used to be (once the richest city in america) but, as something different and manageable. Pittsburg did. Wait 20 years. | | Anonymous, on Oct 20, 2009 wrote:
Wow seems like some people are jealous they don’t write for Vice. Stop Hating because your working some crap job. If he was and idiot his article wouldn’t have been published. It is awful nice to hide behind the obscurity of "anonymous" and then call a published person an idiot. You people suck | | Anonymous, on Oct 15, 2009 wrote:
the idea of thomas morton lecturing the rest of journalism on ethics is almost as laughable as the premise of this shitty article, viz. that detroit is an economically and culturally happening place. the entire state of michigan is a hell hole and when i read the part where he identifies "one of Detroit’s most successful grinding plants" i wanted more information because i have a vague feeling that this thomas morton guy is getting shit past his editor. | | Anonymous, on Oct 15, 2009 wrote:
As a Detroiter I always enjoy reading these insipid stories about the city. They are always written by some frustrated novelist who couldn’t be bothered by doing the research a real journalist might do - all they write are sensitive "impressions" of the city, as if 60 years of history didn’t exist. It’s scary knowing what kind of lazy shitheads control the world’s media these days. | | Anonymous, on Oct 15, 2009 wrote:
Well news for you - I’m afraid Detroit is an almost complete failure and a warning sign for the way business has been run for about 30 or 40 years now.
I grew up about 2 hours away in Ontario and have only seen the place get worse. The irony is that Detroit used to be an example of American prosperity. Time for us to change the way we conduct our society. Detroit is an unacceptable failure, an object lesson in how not to run things. This cancer must not be allowed to spread. | | | Next 30 comments > |
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