Detroit is on the cover of Time Magazine this week and is all over time.com. Detroit is on the cover of the most recent Sports Illustrated. Expect to see increased coverage of Detroit in Fortune magazine too.
That’s because Time, Inc. – owner of all three publications and their Web sites – has a year-long “Assignment Detroit” underway. The company even bought a house on Detroit’s East Side as a working bureau – so journalists stationed here and those just visiting can see more than just the inside of apartments or hotel rooms. Here’s a link to the time.com site that houses much of the content, including a blog written by journalists who already established themselves in this market before Time came to town.
Detroit’s Fox-owned WJBK interviewed me this week for some perspective on the Time cover story and the project in general. You can watch their story at Tanner Friedman’s YouTube site.
The bottom line – Time believes that Detroit content will capture the nation’s attention and drive audience to its properties, at a time when all media are challenged in that regard. They also clearly believe that the city’s stories are relevant to the future of the nation’s economy.
For those of us here, we’re used to national reporters flying in for a day, taking pictures of abandoned buildings, picking up a few quotes and flying back to New York to write their stories. Hopefully, this presence in the market will help Time’s journalists create fair and complete content which, so far, they have done.