MLive President John Hiner is off this week. This guest column is written by Bryn Mickle, MLive’s director of local news.
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When FBI agents raided an Ypsilanti home last week, MLive didn’t have to go far for the story. It was just across the street from the front door of Ann Arbor News reporter Sophia Kalakailo.
“I was one of the first people out there – if not the first,” said Kalakailo, who heard the shouts of “FBI!” and loud bangs just outside her window.
Within minutes, Kalakailo was outside rolling video with her phone, talking to people in the growing crowd of onlookers and working with fellow reporter Jordyn Pair to report the story.
The raid turned out to be related to an investigation into a series of pro-Palestinian vandalism cases targeted at University of Michigan officials and others. This was a big story and MLive was there first.
I don’t write this to brag (well, maybe a little) but rather to point out how important it is that our journalists live in the communities that we cover.
You may have heard the term “parachute journalism” but, if not, it refers to news organizations that hop on a big story outside their coverage area and disappear when the story runs its initial course.
And while that is great for the visiting media outlets, it’s not so great for the people who live there – be it Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor or anywhere else.
Here’s one of the things that makes MLive different: We don’t leave the communities we cover because we are there every day.
When I worked as a journalist at our sister paper in Flint, I saw firsthand the damage done when the nationals jumped in to cover the Flint water crisis, the shooting death of 6-year-old Kayla Rolland in her classroom and the various serial killers who stalked the area.
Parachute reporters had no problem showing the tragedy but were nowhere to be found when something positive happened that didn’t fit the narrative stereotype of Flint as a desolate shell plagued by drugs and poverty – an unfair reputation shared in part by Ypsilanti.
But MLive readers know better, in part because of the hard work done by Kalakailo and the rest of our MLive staff of local reporters who live and work in the communities we cover.
Ypsilanti residents know Kalakailo’s name from myriad stories she has written on everything from city council to the school board.
Just as importantly, Kalakailo knows Ypsilanti. She went to Eastern Michigan University and has lived in the city or nearby for years.
“I feel pretty strongly that if you want to cover a community, you should live there,” said Kalakailo, adding that she has a stake in the community.
And that is not limited to Kalakailo. Look across our roster of reporters and editors and you will see we all have a stake in Ann Arbor and the surrounding areas.
“We are residents first. We have kids, families, friends here. Our lives are intertwined with the news,” said Danielle Salisbury, editor at The Ann Arbor News. “Sophia started filming the raid by instinct as a curious journalist, yes, but she also wanted to know why the FBI was in her neighborhood.”
In my new role as director of local news, I don’t want our journalists to be cheerleaders. Far from it.
I want them to know their communities in ways those outside of Washtenaw County and Michigan do not so that we can find and tell the stories that matter and hold public officials to account.
We are part of our communities and our communities are part of us – and unlike those other news outlets – I promise we aren’t going anywhere.
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