Opinion

Commentary: Residency Requirements

Jack Lessenberry — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:23:48 +0000

Weeks ago, the Detroit mayoral race had come down to a contest between Mike Duggan, former head of the Detroit Medical Center, and Benny Napoleon, now the Wayne County Sheriff.

But this was expected to be the most exciting and significant mayoral election in forty years. Then, to everyone‘s shock, a Wayne County circuit judge ruled this week that Duggan wasn‘t qualified because he failed to meet the residency requirement.

The downsides to legalizing marijuana

Keith Oppenheim — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:59:16 +0000

This week, police in Grand Rapids began a pilot program to treat marijuana possession as a civil infraction. This comes six months after voters approved an amendment to decriminalize pot.

In Michigan, if you've got an aching back or live in Grand Rapids or Ann Arbor, there’s less reason to feel like marijuana will get you into trouble.

For better or worse, pot is gaining acceptance. Our state is one of 20 in the U.S. where marijuana is either OK for medical use or decriminalized. In Washington state and Colorado, recreational use is legal. Increasingly, there are American communities like Grand Rapids where voters don’t want to spend time and money prosecuting offenders caught with a bag of weed.

Students aren’t leaving Michigan football - Michigan football is leaving them

John U. Bacon — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:59:23 +0000

For decades, students at Michigan games were assigned seats, with the seniors getting the best ones. But for some games last year, a quarter of the 20,000 or so people in the student section were no-shows.

So, athletic director Dave Brandon decided to switch them to general admission – first come, first seated -- to get them to show up on time -or, at all.

The students went ballistic.

Yes, some can display a breathtaking sense of entitlement, and they won’t get much sympathy from the average fan, who has to pay three or four-times more.

Find the work you love and forget the rest

John U. Bacon — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 05:11:00 +0000

CareerCast.com ranked more than 1,000 American jobs, and determined that the worst job isn’t garbage collector, animal cage cleaner or Lindsey Lohan’s sobriety tester – but journalist.

Yes! Score! Booyah!

They based their rankings on four criteria:

the workplace environment,
the industry’s future,
the job’s average income,
and stress.

Okay, it’s true: newsrooms aren’t pretty places. The future looks bleak for newspapers. You can make more money doing a lot of other things. And, yes, the stress is very real. The hours are bad and many of our customers think they can do it better – and often take the time to tell us that.

But journalists themselves have reacted to this ranking with all the cool, collected calm of Geraldo Rivera, or Nancy Grace.

But here’s why: newsrooms aren’t for everybody, but we like them – the hustle and bustle and energy and urgency. We like the stress, too – no matter how much we complain about it – because it comes with doing work we think actually matters.

Commentary: The week that was

Jack Lessenberry — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 12:26:50 +0000

This was the week in which Detroit got an emergency manager and the state got a right-to-work law. That is to say, the law took effect this week. I’d say that makes for a pretty newsworthy few days. Some things this week were entirely predictable. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton showed up to protest the Emergency Manager. Crowds of demonstrators appeared at Detroit’s city hall crowds which swelled when TV cameras showed up.

The first major lawsuit was filed against the emergency manager law, and the Detroit Tigers sent an exciting new spring phenom, closer Bruce Rondon, down to the minor leagues. That story is worth mentioning, by the way, because a newspaper computer analysis shows that more people read it today than read any of the stories about the state or city‘s drama.

Commentary: Emergency Manager for Detroit

Jack Lessenberry — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 12:25:17 +0000

When Governor Snyder announced he was appointing an emergency manager for Detroit, I was in Traverse City, having lunch with a former governor who long ago tried his best to get the state to help Michigan’s largest city stay on its feet.

William Milliken served as governor longer than anyone has or ever will – fourteen years.

He is a firm believer in something Rick Snyder said earlier this week – that it is not Detroit vs. Michigan, but a situation where a healthy Detroit is essential to the entire state.

Facing our Future Means Nurturing New Shows and Talents

Tamar Charney — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 17:00:58 +0000

Over the past year, we’ve been making some changes to the Michigan Radio schedule. I know that for some, these changes have been for the better, while others wish we’d left well enough alone. Over the next few years, there will likely be more adjustments to our mix of shows as we work to determine what will best meet the needs of our listening audience in the years to come.

Commentary: Carl Levin bows out

Jack Lessenberry — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 13:25:27 +0000

When I heard yesterday afternoon that Senator Carl Levin was not going to run for reelection, the first thing that popped into my mind was a line from Macbeth.

"Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it."

That doesn’t exactly fit here, though the way in which he chose to leave the Senate was as classy as his spotless career.

Commentary: Facing reality in Detroit

Jack Lessenberry — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:31:45 +0000

Some years ago, when the Green Party in Germany first had a chance to join a coalition government, there was a tremendous battle within the party between the purists and the pragmatists. The purists, who were nicknamed the “fundis,” felt that would be selling out. The practical politicians, called the “realos,” thought that by joining the government they could influence events and at least get some of their agenda enacted.

What religion does your legislator follow?

Jack Lessenberry — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:20:22 +0000

Bill Ballenger, who has been watching politicians in Lansing for close to half a century, had an interesting survey last week in his biweekly newsletter, Inside Michigan Politics.

He decided to find out how many members of the legislature are members of each religious denomination, something he does every few years.

What struck me as most interesting is that some people didn’t want to be pinned down as to what religion they were.

That was, he said, because some politicians prefer “to give the impression that the legislator could be affiliated with any number of faiths with whose parishioners she or he might actually worship from time to time.”

Dumb, complicated ideas floated to fix Michigan's roads

Jack Lessenberry — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:36:05 +0000

Pretty much everyone knows that our roads are in terrible shape, and need to be repaired.

However, at the same time, pretty much everyone also doesn’t want to pay to fix them.

We think somebody else should pay.

So far, Governor Rick Snyder has been the closest thing to a grownup on this issue. He reasons that those who use the roads, people otherwise known as drivers, should pay most of the cost.

That cost is pretty steep: Just to bring our existing roads back to acceptable condition will require $1.2 billion a year for at least the next ten years.

The governor proposes increasing the gas tax by nineteen cents a gallon on diesel fuel, fourteen cents on gasoline. This would be done at the wholesale level, which means the fuel companies wouldn’t necessarily have to pass them on to the consumer.

Okay, well, you’re allowed to laugh.

Snyder would also raise car registration fees by about 60 percent, and heavy truck plate charges by 25 percent.

Well, that plan seemed to bring people together: Everybody hated it.

What’s Next for Detroit

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 19:52:43 +0000

While Detroit can technically appeal the governor’s decision to appoint an emergency manager, it is clear that the city is going to get one within the next couple of weeks.

Detroiters are now waiting to find out the identity of the person who will have more power in their city than any mayor has ever had.

Right-to-work in Michigan: Is there a middle ground?

Keith Oppenheim — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 20:04:31 +0000

One thing I know about politically polarizing issues: arguing for middle-of-the-road positions alienates a lot of folks.

But here goes anyway.

I don’t love unions.

And I feel I can say that with some authority, given that as an employee of several media companies, I’ve been a member of three of them.

In every case, I felt unions were so concerned about protecting territory, that they were, at times, anti-progressive, and too often in the business of preserving their power.

I couldn’t touch equipment.

I was prevented from developing technical skills I would have been wise to learn.

Later in my career, when I worked at non-union shops, I was glad that, if I wanted to try something new, I could.

Now, that may seem like a funny way for me to argue that right-to-work laws are a bad idea, but that’s where I’m going with this.

Political ads made to sound like news cross a line

Vincent Duffy — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 23:20:07 +0000

I heard a political ad for radio this week that really got me angry.

OK…sure…I’m probably not alone in that.

But I wasn’t angry because I agree or disagreed with the position taken, or because the ad was misleading or an outright fabrication.

I’m used to “pants on fire” statements in political ads and even expect it.

What bothered me about this particular ad was that it was produced to sound exactly like a news story. A news story that’s close enough to being possible that many listeners could be easily fooled.

Commentary: Something in America has changed

Jack Lessenberry — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 14:35:40 +0000

The election is now only four days away, and I’ve been thinking about what will happen afterward.

Earlier this week, I received a nasty phone call from a woman named Bonnie.

She believes President Obama is evil, and a traitor.

She thinks the media are covering up the truth behind the killing of the American ambassador to Libya.

She was also upset that we are covering up the “fact,” as she put it, that President Obama’s family were all Communists.

I told her, in not very polite terms, that was idiotic.

She began screaming and I hung up.

Want to vote early in Michigan? What's your excuse?

Keith Oppenheim — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 13:00:48 +0000

The presidential election is still a month away, but in many states, early voting is already underway.

Today, Ohio opened the polls to early voters.

It’s one of 34 states that have some kind of early voting system.

Michigan, however, is not one of those states.

Last week, I went to my local city hall. I was feeling good. It was my daughter’s 18^th birthday. I helped her register to vote - civic pride for a dad.

After that, my mood darkened.

Stalled at the CAFE: How the federal government may end up hurting GM

Charles Brown — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:06:19 +0000

Here is a quiz:

The Obama Administration is responsible for:

a) The financial rescue of General Motors;

b) The future financial failure of General Motors;

c) Both a) and b);

d) None of the above.

You won’t find the correct answer in upside-down small print at the bottom of this blog. I am not quite sure myself what the right answer might be. But answer (b) might not be such an incredible response.

Pulling conservative Super-PAC ads from Michigan leaves us with "swing-envy"

Keith Oppenheim — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 22:07:31 +0000

Conservative Super-PACS have pulled their campaign ads supporting Mitt Romney in Michigan. That’s fueling speculation the Romney campaign and conservative groups will move their efforts and money elsewhere.

Commentator Keith Oppenheim has these thoughts.

Back in June, I thought we had a chance.

Commentator Charles Brown 'truth-squads' Jennifer Granholm's DNC speech

Charles Brown — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 16:11:03 +0000

I made a point of tuning into C-SPAN on the last night of the Democratic National Convention. It wasn’t because I was looking forward to a political speech from Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria. Although in retrospect, Ms. Longoria’s speech was statesman-like in comparison to what went before her.

What I saw shocked me.

Local reporters at national conventions are not a waste of money

Vincent Duffy — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:54:03 +0000

I just spent about $5,000 at the two national political conventions.

No, I wasn’t out wining and dining with the heavy hitters, and despite how much my critics would love to finally be able to prove my biases, I wasn’t handing out political contributions to candidates either.

I spent the money to send Michigan Radio reporters to cover the Michigan delegation at each convention.

When the Democratic National Convention wraps up tonight, roughly 15,000 journalists will file their last stories from the conventions and head home for the weekend.