August 17-23, 2016 a Newspaper for the Rest of Us
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A newspaper for the rest of us www.lansingcitypulse.com August 17-23, 2016 2 15th Anniversary Section || www.lansingcitypulse.com City Pulse • August 17, 2016 CONGRATULATIONS! SERVING GREATER LANSING FOR 15 YEARS THE LANSING REGIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND CITY PULSE – STRONG ADVOCATES FOR A PROSPEROUS GREATER LANSING! LEADERSHIP. CONNECTIVITY. ADVOCATE. CONGRATULATIONS ON 15 YEARS! #ProudToBeLansing www.Gillespie-Group.com City Pulse • August 17, 2016 15th Anniversary Section || www.lansingcitypulse.com 3 phobic views as a guest columnist one we have today. Free publicity also played a semester. I shared with him my disap- role, such as a WKAR radio interview that pointment in his beliefs. The next year, Scott Pohl was kind enough to do, the weekly Randy dropped out of school. When he appearances that Tim Barron generously returned, he got in touch to let me know afforded me on his market-leading FM ra- he was gay. We became passing friends. dio show year after year, and a TV piece by Beginnings Randy stayed on at the journalism school Dave Akerly when he took over as anchor at WLNS. I thank them and others for their support. I especially thank those It started with a phone call. businesses and organizations that My seven-year gig as general man- were early distribution points. They ager of The State News had ended took a chance on City Pulse based on — a parting of the ways — and now nothing more than a prototype. Be- what? “Maybe I should start a news- cause of you, we heard early on from paper,” I said facetiously to a friend on many people, “You’re everywhere.” the phone. A light went on. Being everywhere is part of the “That’s exactly what I should do,” I reason we are still here, but of course told him. the content is the bigger reason. We And I did. know from our surveys why people That winter of 2000-‘01, I hired pick us up — some for news, some grad students from the Eli Broad Col- the arts and many for unarguably lege of Business at Michigan State the best events listings in the area. University for a market research But there’s something more intan- study. They allowed that “perhaps” gible, and it results from the sum my idea for an alternative weekly in of the people who have contributed the Lansing market was feasible. That their efforts over the years. Our writ- was enough for me. ers know that City Pulse is a writer’s The name came first. I half stole it newspaper. They are given consid- from the Metro Pulse, the alternative erable latitude and space to express weekly in Knoxville, Tenn. I’d been themselves, largely unfettered. Our managing editor there of the daily cover artists know we let them take newspaper owned by the media con- risks and have fun. Our ad salespeo- glomerate E.W. Scripps Co. in the late ple know that we place honesty and 1980s. In 2007, Scripps bought the service above all else. Metro Pulse — an odd arrangement, These values helped us through a I thought, given that an alternative challenging time 18 months into our newspaper is an alternative to the existence when Gannett, which owns mainstream newspaper. In 2014, as the Lansing State Journal, started a newspaper profits declined, Scripps competitor called Noise. It launched closed the Metro Pulse. And, in the with billboards, including one placed ever-shrinking world of mainstream around the corner from our office newspapers, Scripps has since sold all in Old Town, a clear shot across our its publications. bow. It had 48 pages and more when The name City Pulse was an in- we often were still just 16. I lost sleep stant hit, appealing to those who saw over Noise for a time. But our read- the potential for Lansing to be more ers knew better. Noise had no soul; sophisticated, a community of people it reeked of plasticity. It was a faux with a culturally and politically pro- alternative newspaper. After years gressive outlook that City Pulse could of forced ad buys and an inflated help unite into a shared vision. Those page count, Gannett pulled the plug. people, in ever growing numbers, re- We’ve never had a billboard, but main our niche. we’re still here. The motto “A newspaper for the I could fill pages with the names of rest of us” came next, and it drew people to thank for their role in City mixed reviews. Some people thought Pulse, both directly and indirectly. it projected exclusion, but I stuck with Space doesn’t allow it, but I’d be re- it. I wanted people to know that City miss not to thank Larry Cosentino, Pulse was a newspaper and all that who has had more bylines than any- implied to me as a career newspaper- one in our first 15 years. When I de- man: that it would be independent, “She: ‘What is this newspaper starting in cided on a retrospective issue to mark that its coverage would have immediacy, and Old Town?”’ for a master’s degree in design, and when I this anniversary, I turned to Larry to shape that we’d “comfort the afflicted and afflict the “He: ‘Oh, that’s a gay newspaper.”’ decided to start City Pulse, I turned to him. it. He went through our bound volumes and comfortable.” And perhaps most important, After we launched, a bar owner signed on Long distance from Florida, where he was in found the stories and images you are about the still-powerful Lansing daily represented as an early advertiser because he despised a summer program at the prestigious jour- to see. Another stellar contributor to City the Establishment, and I wanted to say clear- the State Journal. Then after a month or two, nalism think tank the Poynter Institute, he Pulse is our recently retired design editor ly that we did not. he pulled out. Years later, his son came on designed City Pulse. Much of what Randy Jonathan Griffith, who suited up again to as- Before we’d even published our first issue, City Pulse’s radio show to promote a music did then survives today, and he has never semble this special issue. And thanks as well some folks saw another difference: City Pulse series his dad’s bar was staging. I asked him gotten the credit he deserves. It didn’t sur- to Peter Berg and his crew at Special Collec- was labeled a gay newspaper because, I pre- if his father had stopped advertising because prise me that Randy went on to become the tions at the MSU Library for helping us fill in sume, I am gay. The president of the Lansing I am gay, and the son said yes. Soon after, the graphics editor of The Wall Street Journal. some gaps resulting from a digital meltdown City Council, Lou Adado Jr., got caught up bar advertised with us again. Things change. The next big step before launching was in our early years. in a sexual harassment scandal with a staff- After settling on a name and a mot- lining up distribution points. I had very little What follows are story excerpts and cov- er. Amid emails between them pertaining to, we needed a look, and once again I money for marketing, but I thought that the ers from the first 15 years. to, among other things, undies in her desk turned to MSU. I’d gotten to know Randy paper would market itself if it could be found I’ll shut up now and let you get to it. drawer, was an exchange that went some- Yeip in my State News days when he as in enough locations. By the time we started, thing like this: an undergraduate wrote harshly homo- we’d lined up about half of the 525 locations — Berl Schwartz 4 15th Anniversary Section || www.lansingcitypulse.com City Pulse • August 17, 2016 Nothing is more frustrating to a began to appear locally. Several hundred back to their country.' That kind of stuff is journalist than standing by when a big marched for peace from the MSU campus more widespread than you'd think." story is breaking — and few stories have to the Capitol. CP: "Anybody against retaliating?" been bigger than 9/11. That was a Tuesday, An even deeper rift, though, presented Barron: "One person.” and City Pulse was well into production itself: A few citizens dared to say that while for its third issue the next day. Eerily, we the thousands who died in New York, worked on what we had planned — our Washington and Pennsylvania may have To say City Pulse hit a nerve with its cover headline was “As East Lansing’s new been innocent victims, America, through May 1, 2002, cover is an understatement. downtown rises, it’s time to ask: IS THIS its foreign and economic policies, was not In Goliath fashion, The Keep GM PROGRESS?” Two weeks later, though, we quite so innocent a victim. movement was in full throttle in 2002. devoted our cover, designed by Steve Kovar, City Pulse’s David was Brian McKenna, an … and five inside pages to local reaction to environmental journalist with time on his 9/11 — and in the process began to discover Tim Barron , radio personality, WMMQ- hands. When an Ann Arbor environmental one of our strengths: a more in-depth look FM: group proposed that GM offset the higher at stories. "We stayed on the air for a while, giving pollution standards it was seeking for its out the information when it came to us, new Delta Township plant by lowering right up until after the second plane.