Posted: Aug. 16, 2009
Media giant buys Detroit home for reporters to track city

BY BILL McGRAW
MOTOR CITY JOURNAL

You can take a short-term view of Detroit's problems or you can settle in for the long haul and see what happens.

Media giant Time Inc. has chosen the latter, bringing a kind of immersion journalism to the city as Detroit undergoes epic physical and cultural changes and the domestic auto industry struggles to get from survival mode into high gear.

Time, which publishes Time, Sports Illustrated, People and Money, among more than 100 magazines worldwide, has bought a five-bedroom house in Detroit's West Village and will set up shop to chronicle the fortunes of the city and the auto industry. Though many national and foreign reporters have done snapshot stories from Detroit in the past year, Time is apparently going for a live-in look. A company spokesman said only that "we're not ready to share details" of the project.

Well, it is one heck of a story, as folks around here know all too well. And it's a long way from over.

Project has neighbors buzzing

The buzz along the fancy part of Parker Avenue this summer was about the buyer of the handsome stucco house that had been vacant for more than two years.

Word on the street was the buyer was a literate and powerful New Yorker with global connections and staggering wealth. Sure enough, the buyer's current address, according to real estate records, turned out to be 1271 Avenue of the Americas, a Manhattan skyscraper.

Parker Avenue, meet your new neighbor: Time Inc., the legendary media colossus.

In a highly unusual decision for a news organization, Time has purchased a 95-year-old house in Detroit's historic West Village neighborhood, next to Indian Village. The home will serve as a base of operations for months -- and perhaps a couple of years -- as Time's various publications cast a unique spotlight on Detroit and chronicle its increasingly desperate struggle to reinvent itself.

A Time reporter has told acquaintances he will move in before the end of summer. People familiar with the project said news coverage would be provided by staffers from several of Time Inc.'s more than 100 magazines, which include Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Money, People, Essence and Entertainment Weekly.
Continued: http://freep.com/article/20090816/CO...-to-track-city