Famine in Detroit

In Detroit one afternoon last week, a bored Republican campaign worker dumped an armload of four-page election handbills into two conveniently empty newspaper racks. In a few hours, passers-by had snapped up all the campaign tabloids, deposited $3.52 in the cash boxes.

Detroiters had never been so famished for news. For the first time in the city's history, all three dailies--the Detroit Free Press, News and Times--were strikebound. The stereotypers' union had closed the papers over demands that included a full day's pay for any extra work after eight hours, e.g., for turning out Sunday Edition color plates after hours on a weekday. Newsmagazine sales had gone up 30%; out-of-town newspapers were being sold for as much as $1 a copy.

To try to tell the news, Detroit's Polish-language Dziennik Polski jacked up its press run from 48,600 to 150,000 copies daily, wrapped an 18-page English section around its ten-page Polish editions. A pinch-hitting daily, the Detroit Reporter, was started by newsmen from the strikebound papers with $100 and blessings from the American Newspaper Guild and the Allied Printing Trades Council. At week's end it was printing 100,000 eight-page papers a day.

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