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Letter from the Editor Dear Reader, I never slept better the night before an explosive story ran than in 2016, as MLive was set to publish “All the Governor’s Men,” an investigative tour de force that showed who in Gov. Rick Snyder’s inner circle knew about the unfolding Flint Water Crisis.
That’s because I’d been in a line-by-line fact-checking session for the package of stories with Julie Mack. “How do we know that person knew this, as we purport?” I might ask. And without hesitation she would say, “Because they were CC’d on an email sent from the chief of staff on March 14, 2015.”
And then she'd pull the printed email from a box of thousands of files to prove it. She did that without pause or error for hours and hours and hours.
Julie Mack isn’t just a great journalist. She proved herself over and over to be a great journalist on the biggest stories. I will hate to see her go.
Mack’s last day as a reporter on MLive’s statewide team is today, as she moves into retirement. She has spent two stints with us, beginning as a part-timer in 1978 and then returning for good in 1990.
You most likely know her as our lead public health reporter during the COVID pandemic’s spread through Michigan. But Mack also led MLive’s coverage of the Kalamazoo Promise; became an expert in charter schools as they proliferated; provided critical reporting to our award-winning coverage of the Flint Water Crisis; and was the lead reporter in covering the Larry Nassar sex assault scandal that engulfed Michigan State University.
As my anecdote above illustrates, Mack has a well-earned reputation for meticulous, thorough reporting; hawk-like attention to detail; precise writing; and having the goods to back the conclusions of her reporting. But it was always stoked by her passion for journalism as a public good.
“I've had my colleagues laugh about the sense of outrage I can work myself into,” she said.
That sense of purpose was initially fueled by two journalists who became household names as they brought down a presidential administration: Woodward and Bernstein.
“I was very much of the generation of journalists who was inspired by Watergate. … I was 13 at the time and was really onto Watergate – that was a heady time for journalism.”
She also had a good dose of journalism in her veins. Her father, Larry Mack, was a legendary high school journalism teacher and newspaper adviser who is the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame; her uncle, Glenn Atkin, was a longtime news and copy editor at the Jackson Citizen Patriot.
From a part-time starting gig at the Cit Pat in 1978, she went to MSU and then, after graduation, was hired at the Cit Pat full time. She moved on to The Staten Island Advance as a reporter, then to The Hartford Courant in Connecticut as a copy editor.
She rejoined us for good in 1990, spending most of her career as a reporter at the Kalamazoo Gazette. She also wrote columns that were used in our newspapers across the state.
Any journalist whose longevity spans from the era of the newspaper monopoly to the fractious days of digital dog-eat-dog has some battle scars, and insights.
“I had gotten into journalism in the golden years; newspapers did not have to worry about making money,” she said. “If you weren't making 30 percent profit every year, you were doing something wrong.”
While she notes – correctly – that “the digital age has devastated the financial model of journalism,” she also points to how the tools and immediacy afforded by the electronic news platforms have improved journalism.
“A newspaper … was yesterday’s news tomorrow,” she said. The best reporters, like Mack, adapted to new opportunities by using the internet for deep research on the topics they wrote about; by exploiting available databases for insights; and by engaging with readers directly for tips, and occasionally, spirited debates on the topics they wrote about.
That doesn’t mean the transition was easy. Mack is among a group of employees at MLive who lived and worked through the wrenching change from the 7-days-a-week home-delivered newspaper era to the present day. If you want a sobering description of what that was like, take it from Mack:
“When we were going through the initial transition in 2009-10, I actually had Stage 3 colon cancer. The work issues were harder than the cancer. I had life-threatening cancer, and I was more stressed out by the work situation.”
Financial losses in the newspaper industry meant saying goodbye to treasured colleagues lost to layoffs; leaving our traditional buildings; having to learn new skills; working faster and harder than we ever had.
“I was 50; I was the main breadwinner in our family. I was worried about what was going to happen to me career-wise, but in terms of journalism, too,” she said. “Everybody who's in journalism has a sense of mission.
“One big takeaway from that year was, I felt like I had to be an old dog learning new tricks.”
Mack not only adapted well, but she also became a centerpiece of our reporting on some of the biggest stories coming out of Michigan the past decade.
Her interest in seeing journalism make a difference in society may have been born in the Watergate era. But she ably and steadfastly carried that mission into the present. Whether it was the Flint tragedy, the Nassar scandal or the pandemic crisis, she kept her focus on the people she was writing for and the difference it could make in their lives.
“They're not just big policy stories,” she said. “They're stories that hit individuals so intensely.”
### On this week’s episode of MLive’s Behind the Headlines podcast, Julie Mack dives deep into what it was like covering the Flint Water Crisis, Nassar scandal and the COVID pandemic. She also shares insights and experiences from her long career as a journalist and writer. Listen here. John Hiner is the vice president of content for MLive Media Group. If you have questions you’d like him to answer, or topics to explore, share your thoughts at editor@mlive.com.
Editor's note: I value your feedback to my columns, story tips and your suggestions on how to improve our coverage. Let me know how MLive helps you, and how we can do better. Please feel free to reach out by emailing me at editor@mlive.com.
John Hiner Executive Editor Vice President of Content Mlive Media Group
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