The ''Detroit Free Press'' is the largest daily

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

, US. The Sunday edition is titled the ''Sunday Free Press''. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep (reflected in the paper's web address, www.freep.com). It primarily serves Wayne,

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

, Macomb,

Livingston Livingston may refer to: Businesses * Livingston Energy Flight, an Italian airline (2003–2010) * Livingston Compagnia Aerea, an Italian airline (2011–2014), also known as Livingston Airline * Livingston International, a North American custom ...

, Washtenaw, and Monroe counties. The ''Free Press'' is also the largest city newspaper owned by Gannett, which also publishes ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

''. The ''Free Press'' has received ten

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

s and four

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

s. Its motto is "On Guard for Years". In 2018, the ''Detroit Free Press'' received two Salute to Excellence awards from the

National Association of Black Journalists The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is an organization of African-American journalists, students, and media professionals. Founded in 1975 in Washington, D.C., by 44 journalists, the NABJ's stated purpose is to provide quality p ...

History

1831–1989: Competitive newspaper

The newspaper was launched by John R. Williams and his uncle,

Joseph Campau Joseph Campau (February 20, 1769 – May 13, 1863) was among the leading citizens and wealthiest landowners in Detroit, Michigan, at the beginning of the 19th century. Campau had three trading posts and a store in Detroit until the early 1800s. He ...

, and was first published as the ''Democratic Free Press and Michigan Intelligencer'' on May 5, 1831. It was renamed to ''Detroit Daily Free Press'' in 1835, becoming the region's first daily newspaper. Williams printed the first issues on a Washington press he purchased from the discontinued ''Oakland Chronicle'' of

Pontiac Pontiac may refer to: *Pontiac (automobile), a car brand *Pontiac (Ottawa leader) ( – 1769), a Native American war chief Places and jurisdictions Canada *Pontiac, Quebec, a municipality ** Apostolic Vicariate of Pontiac, now the Roman Catholic D ...

. It was hauled from Pontiac in a wagon over rough roads to a building at Bates and Woodbridge streets in Detroit. The hand-operated press required two men and could produce 250 pages per hour. The first issues were in size, with five columns of type. Sheldon McKnight became the first publisher with his uncle

John Pitts Sheldon John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

as the editor. In the 1850s, the paper was developed into a leading

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

–aligned publication under the ownership of

Wilbur F. Storey Wilbur Fisk Storey (December 19, 1819 – October 27, 1884) was an American journalist and newspaper publisher who was instrumental in the growth of the ''Detroit Free Press'' and the ''Chicago Times''. During the American Civil War, Storey pur ...

. Storey left for the '' Chicago Times'' in 1861, taking much of the staff with him. In the 1870s ownership passed to William E. Quinby, who continued its Democratic leanings and established a

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

edition. In 1940, the Knight Newspapers (later

Knight Ridder Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, it was the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspaper brand ...

) purchased the ''Free Press''. During the next 20 years, the ''Free Press'' competed in the southeastern Michigan market with ''

The Detroit News ''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the '' Detroit Tribune'' on Februa ...

'' and the ''

Detroit Times Six different newspapers called the ''Detroit Times'' have been published in the city of Detroit; the most recent existed for six decades, from 1900-60. Overview *The first iteration of the ''Detroit Times'' was an antislavery bulletin only print ...

'', until the ''Times'' was purchased and closed by ''The Detroit News'' on November 7, 1960. The ''Free Press'' was delivered and sold as a night paper, with home deliveries made after 7:00pm until around 1966. A morning "Blue Streak Edition" was available at news stands beginning around 1965, meaning the ''Free Press'' actually printed two editions per day. During that period ''The Detroit News'' was sold and delivered as an afternoon newspaper.

1989–present: Joint operating agreement

In 1989, the paper entered into a one hundred-year

joint operating agreement The Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 was an Act of the United States Congress, signed by President Richard Nixon, authorizing the formation of joint operating agreements among competing newspaper operations within the same media market area. It ...

with its rival, combining business operations while maintaining separate editorial staffs. The combined company is called the

Detroit Media Partnership Detroit Media Partnership, L.P. manages the business operations - including production, advertising and circulation - for the two leading Detroit newspapers: ''The Detroit News'' and ''Detroit Free Press''. Detroit Media Partnership also handles ...

. The two papers also began to publish joint Saturday and Sunday editions, though the editorial content of each remained separate. At the time, the ''Detroit Free Press'' was the tenth-highest circulation paper in the United States, and the combined ''Detroit News and Free Press'' was the country's fourth-largest Sunday paper. On July 13, 1995,

Newspaper Guild The NewsGuild-CWA is a trade union, labor union founded by newspaper journalists in 1933. In addition to improving wages and working conditions, its constitution says its purpose is to fight for honesty in journalism and the news industry's busin ...

–represented employees of the ''Free Press'' and ''News'' and the pressmen, printers and Teamsters working for the "Detroit Newspapers" distribution arm went on strike. By October, about 40% of the editorial staffers had crossed the picket line, and many trickled back over the next months while others stayed out for the two and a half years of the strike. The strike was resolved in court three years later, and the unions remain active at the paper, representing a majority of the employees under their jurisdiction. News Free Press Building

In 1998, the ''Free Press'' vacated its former headquarters in downtown Detroit and moved to offices into ''The Detroit News'' building and began to operate from its new offices in that building on June 26 of that year. On August 3, 2005, Knight Ridder sold the ''Free Press'' to the Gannett Company, which had previously owned and operated ''The Detroit News''. Gannett, in turn, sold ''The News'' to MediaNews Group; Gannett continues to be the managing partner in the papers' joint operating agreement. The ''Free Press'' resumed publication of its own Sunday edition, May 7, 2006, without any content from ''The News'', other than that ''The News'' would print its editorial page in the Sunday ''Free Press''. FederalReserveBankDetroit

On December 16, 2008, Detroit Media Partnership (DMP) announced a plan to limit weekday home delivery for both dailies to Thursday and Friday only. On other weekdays the paper sold at newsstands would be smaller, about 32 pages, and redesigned. This arrangement went into effect March 30, 2009. The ''Free Press'' entered a news partnership with

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...

WWJ-TV WWJ-TV (channel 62) is a television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, owned and operated by the CBS television network. Under common ownership with CW affiliate WKBD-TV under the network's CBS News and Stations group, both statio ...

channel 62 in March 2009 to produce a morning news show called ''First Forecast Mornings''. Prior to the partnership, WWJ aired absolutely no local newscast at all. In February 2014, the DMP announced its offices along with those of the ''Free Press'' and ''The Detroit News'' would occupy six floors in both the old and new sections of the former

Federal Reserve building The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building houses the main offices of the Board of Governors of the United States' Federal Reserve System. It is located at the intersection of 20th Street and Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. Th ...

at 160 West Fort Street. The partnership expected to place signs on the exterior similar to those on the former offices. The move took place beginning in October 2014.

Ownership changes

In June 2015, Gannett split itself into two companies. The company's television broadcasters and digital publishers became part of a new company known as

Tegna Inc. Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into tw ...

while its traditional print publishers became part of a new Gannett. In November 2019, the newspaper announced it would cut four staff positions ahead of the GateHouse Media conglomerate completing its purchase of Gannett. The Gannett board finalized the purchase agreement on November 19, 2019.

Other ''Free Press'' publications

* '' Screen & Radio Weekly'' (1934–1940) * ''The Detroit Almanac: 300 Years of Life in the Motor City'' (2001). Peter Gavrilovich and Bill McGraw, editors.

Notable people

Mitch Albom Mitchell David Albom (born May 23, 1958) is an American author, journalist, and musician. His books have sold over 40 million copies worldwide. Having achieved national recognition for sports writing in his early career, he turned to writing the ...

* Edward A. Batchelor * Jack Berry * Donna Britt *

Frank Bruni Frank Anthony Bruni (born October 31, 1964) is an American journalist and long-time writer for ''The New York Times''. In June 2011, he was named an op-ed columnist for the newspaper. His columns appear twice weekly and he also writes a weekly ne ...

Mike Downey Mike Downey (born August 9, 1951 in Chicago Heights, Illinois, and raised in the nearby village of Steger, Illinois) is a retired American newspaper columnist. From 2003 to 2008, Downey wrote the "In the Wake of the News" column for the ''Chica ...

Joe Falls Joseph Francis Falls (May 2, 1928 – August 11, 2004) was an American journalist. He began his career in his native New York City. At the age of 17 in 1945, he took a job as a copyboy for the Associated Press. After an apprenticeship of eight year ...

David Gilkey David P. Gilkey (January 5, 1966 – June 5, 2016) was a U.S. photojournalist for National Public Radio in the United States, for whom he covered disasters, epidemics and war. It was originally reported that Gilkey and his native Afghan handler ...

Robin Givhan Robin Givhan (born September 11, 1964) is an American fashion editor and Pulitzer Prize winning writer. Givhan was a fashion editor for ''The Washington Post''. She joined the ''Post'' in 1995, and left in 2010 to become the fashion critic and fas ...

* Susan Goldberg *

Ellen Goodman Ellen Goodman (née Holtz; born April 11, 1941) is an American journalist and syndicated columnist. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1980. She is also a speaker and commentator. Career Goodman's career began as a researcher and reporter for ''Newsweek ...

Gary Graff Gary Graff (born 1960) is an American music journalist and author. Biography Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Graff attended Taylor Allderdice High School where he wrote for school newspaper ''The Taylor Allderdice Foreword''. He recei ...

* Sam Greene *

Edgar Guest Edgar Albert Guest (20 August 1881 – 5 August 1959) was a British-born American poet who became known as the People's Poet. His poems often had an inspirational and optimistic view of everyday life. Early life Guest was born in Birmingham ...

Dick Guindon Richard Gordon Guindon (December 2, 1935 – February 27, 2022) was an American cartoonist best known for his gag panel ''Guindon''. Guindon's cartoons have appeared in the ''Minneapolis Tribune'', ''The Realist'', and the ''Detroit Free Press''. ...

Ken Hamblin Ken Loronzo Hamblin II (born October 22, 1940), the self-titled ''Black Avenger'', was host of the ''Ken Hamblin Show'', which was syndicated nationally on Entertainment Radio Networks. His show peaked in the 1990s, but he left the air, without ...

* Stephen Henderson *

Jemele Hill Jemele Juanita Hill (; born 1975) is an American sports journalist who writes for ''The Atlantic''. She worked nearly 12 years for sports conglomerate ESPN. She wrote a column for ESPN.com's Page 2 and formerly hosted ESPN's '' His and Hers''. ...

* Lee Hills * Royce Howes * Clark Hoyt * Joe S. Jackson *

David Cay Johnston David Cay Boyle Johnston (born December 24, 1948) is an American investigative journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting. From July 2011 until September 2012 he was a ...

Dorothy Misener Jurney Dorothy Misener Jurney (May 8, 1909 – June 19, 2002) was an American journalist. As women's page editor for the '' Miami Herald'', she shifted the focus of those pages from the "Four F's – family, food, fashion, and furnishings" – t ...

Michelle Kaufman Michelle Kaufman (born 1965) is an American sportswriter and columnist for the ''Miami Herald''. She writes a column every Sunday on sports, focusing on soccer in particular. She also covers tennis, Olympic sports and college and professional sport ...

David Lawrence Jr. David Lawrence Jr. (born March 5, 1942 in New York City, New York) is an American nationally known newspaper editor and publisher who retired at the age of 56 and subsequently became a leading national advocate for children, especially in the area ...

* John C. Lodge *

Kurt Luedtke Kurt Luedtke (; September 28, 1939August 9, 2020) was an American screenwriter and executive editor of the ''Detroit Free Press''. He wrote ''Out of Africa'' (1985), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also wrote ' ...

Myra MacPherson Myra MacPherson (born 1934) is an American author, biographer, and journalist known for writing about politics, the Vietnam War, feminism, and death and dying. Although her work has appeared in many publications, she had a long affiliation with ...

* Dori J. Maynard *

Eric Millikin Eric Millikin is an American artist and activist based in Detroit, Michigan. He is known for his pioneering work in artificial intelligence art, augmented and virtual reality art, conceptual art, Internet art, performance art, poetry, post-In ...

Elvis Mitchell Elvis Mitchell (born December 6, 1958) is an American film critic, host of the public radio show ''The Treatment'', and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram'', the ''LA Weekly ...

Al Neuharth Allen Harold "Al" Neuharth (March 22, 1924 – April 19, 2013) was an American businessman, author, and columnist born in Eureka, South Dakota. He was the founder of ''USA Today'', The Freedom Forum, and its Newseum. Early life Al Neuharth was bo ...

Jack Ohman Jack Ohman (born September 1, 1960) is an American editorial cartoonist and educator. He works for ''The Sacramento Bee'', and previously worked for ''The Oregonian.'' His work is syndicated nationwide to over 300 newspapers by Tribune Media Se ...

* Rob Parker * William E. Quinby * Rochelle Riley *

James Risen James Risen (born April 27, 1955) is an American journalist for ''The Intercept''. He previously worked for ''The New York Times'' and before that for ''Los Angeles Times''. He has written or co-written many articles concerning U.S. government ...

* Gene Roberts *

Neal Rubin Neal Rubin (born 1955) is an American cartoonist and writer. He is currently a columnist for ''The Detroit Free Press'' and writes the nationally syndicated comic strip '' Gil Thorp.'' He previously spent 15 years as a feature writer and columni ...

Lyall Smith Lyall F. Smith (November 22, 1914 – October 8, 1991) was an American sports writer and editor. He was the sports editor and columnist for the Detroit Free Press from 1945 to 1965 and the president of the Baseball Writers' Association of Ame ...

* Jennie O. Starkey *

Joe Stroud Joe Hinton Stroud (18 June 1936 – 9 May 2002) was editor and senior vice president of the ''Detroit Free Press'' from 1973 to 1998. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in history and political science from Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, and a ma ...

Neely Tucker Neely Tucker (born November 26, 1963, in Lexington, Mississippi) is a journalist and writer. He is the author of ''Love in the Driest Season'', an autobiographical story that touches on his journey from his education at a whites-only school in Mi ...

* David Turnley *

Rob Wagner Robert Leicester Wagner (August 2, 1872 – July 20, 1942) was the editor and publisher of ''Script'', a weekly literary film magazine published in Beverly Hills, California, between 1929 and 1949. Rob Wagner was a magazine writer, screenwrite ...

* Lewis Walter * Taro Yamasaki

References

External links

Official website

Detroit Newspaper Partnership
{{Authority control Newspapers published in Detroit Gannett publications Pulitzer Prize-winning newspapers Publications established in 1831 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service winners