First posted on February 5, 2012 JT
Revised version posted February 1, 2021
By Joel Thurtell
I’m no sports writer, so it was neat to think my byline would appear over a Super Bowl story.
What a drag that my first-ever Super Bowl piece failed to meet the exacting publication standards of the Detroit Free Press.
Yes, my Super Bowl story was spiked.
It was a story that might have given readers a chance to ask what is and what is not tolerable behavior by a law enforcement official.
Is it okay for a prosecutor, say, to break the law if he does it at home, with his pals?
I was working on the Ed McNamara story late in 2002, right after the FBI — with lots of media fanfare — raided his government offices. McNamara was Wayne County executive. Now he is the late Ed McNamara.
Any story about Mac was also a story about his right-hand man, the onetime deputy Wayne County executive, Mike Duggan.
Today (2021), Mike Duggan is Mayor of Detroit. Back in 2002, Mike Duggan was Wayne County prosecutor. Duggan was thoroughly entwined in the McNamara Band’s political ops, so if the feds’ spotlight was on Mac, it was also on Mike Duggan.
Remember that FBI probe? Didn’t think so. They prosecuted a couple of lackeys, but never got close to Mac or Mike.
Never fear. I was on the case.
For a couple years, I was the Detroit Free Press reporter assigned to cover Wayne County government. By the time of the FBI raid, I’d been off that job for, well, about eight years. Why tap me for the McNamara story?
Well, they needed SOMEBODY to do it. The Detroit News had two reporters kicking the Free Press’ butt left and right. One reporter focused on county government, while the other mined the federal court. They coordinated their reporting on the FBI’s investigation of the county. They were embarrassing the Free Press, one reporter covered a slew of out-county towns and schools along with Wayne County government. He was thirty miles from the Detroit action, working in a strip mall office in Livonia.
An editor thought of me. I had covered Wayne County eight years before. Presumably, I could do it again from a desk in Oakland County. A third reporter was assigned to our little team. She backed out. Nobody wanted the job. The lone reporter on this godforsaken beat was Dennis Niemiec, and one look at this tired and frustrated man was warning enough. My assignment was to help Dennis turn this thing around.
Dennis offered solace. He told me his “pizza” theory. He said editors aren’t looking for real substance in stories. What they want is a talker, a story they can hype to fellow editors in the various meetings that consume much of their working days. A story they can chuckle about, joke about, make other editors envious about. A story, in short, that was like a pizza. Full of short-term flavor, high on fat, tasty, but not necessarily of lasting value except maybe to the waistline.
By the time Super Bowl 2003 rolled around, I was delivering pizzas, or trying to, by myself. The day after New Year’s, I was roaming around the bowels of the City-County Building in Detroit looking for some records having to do with county officials’ conflict of interest disclosures. I emerged from the darkness of Wayne County government into a cold, blustery morning and saw Bob Ficano, the newly-elected Wayne County executive, giving his maiden speech on the steps of the old county courthouse. Standing in the crowd taking notes was a Free Press reporter none too happy about being there. “Where’s Niemiec? He’s supposed to be covering this.”
Niemiec, it turned out, at that very moment was retiring from the pizza delivery business. He quit. Now I was delivering my pizza on my own. I thought I had a juicy one. I’d gotten a tip that Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Mike Duggan had a little pizza party of his own on Super Bowl Sunday. Well, I don’t know if he served pizza. Duggan and his assistant prosecutors , I was told, had wagered on the outcome of the game. You know, a Super Bowl pool. They’re pretty common. But they are illegal. So says the Michigan Penal Code.
Mike didn’t deny holding the pool. He told me, “I’m learning that I can’t relax and make a mistake for a single minute when you’re the prosecutor. But I’ve learned. I sent a twenty dollar check over to Focus Hope as a donation to charity and I’ve learned a lesson from it.”
I wrote my Super Bowl story. I quoted Mike Duggan admitting he had the pool. I quoted a University of Michigan law prof that pools are illegal. I quoted the Michigan Penal Code. My story said that a prosecutor who puts other people in jail for breaking the law himself broke the law by sponsoring an illegal gambling activity. My story might go down in history as “pool-gate” or “Bowlgate”! Colleagues were reading my story in the computer. People were stopping by my desk for a laugh. Great story, Joel!
But there was a problem. It’s called the double-standard. Hypocrisy. You know, people who live in glass houses and all that.
A managing editor broke the news: “Joel, if we print your story, the Free Press will never be able to hold another Super Bowl pool.”
There would be no “Pool-gate.” No “Bowlgate.”
The only pool for my story was the toilet.
Journalists wring their hands about the dismal Future of Newspapers.
At the Free Press, the only concern was The Future of the Super Bowl Pool.
Contact me at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
