The editor who oversaw many northern Michigan newspapers, including the Petoskey News-Review and the Cheboygan Daily Tribune, is out of a job.
Sarah Leach was fired in late April by executives at parent company Gannett Co., after she spoke to the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit organization that covers the journalism industry.
Earlier this year, Gannett paused an initiative to hire more than two dozen reporters in understaffed newsrooms across the country.
Leach, an editor with more than 25 years of experience, spoke with Poynter about the challenges that presented.
What does the editor’s firing mean for local news in Petoskey, Cheboygan and other parts of northern Michigan?
She talked about that with IPR’s Michael Livingston.
EDITOR'S NOTE: For transparency, Leach briefly worked with Livingston when he was a student reporter at Central Michigan University. She did not have any part in shaping the interview or the editing process.
INTERVIEW
Michael Livingston, IPR NEWS: Did you know when you spoke to Poynter that your job would be on the line?
SARAH LEACH: I knew in the back of my mind that they probably would be happy if they knew I was having that conversation. But I didn't think that my job was in jeopardy, no.
IPR NEWS: Gannett has made plenty of headlines in the past for shrinking staff all over the country. Can you give us an idea of how many reporters typically work at a Gannett newsroom in northern Michigan, which you oversaw?
LEACH: Those are the small community papers, which I oversaw all of those in northern Michigan. None of them have more than one news reporter and at least one has (no reporter).
IPR NEWS: How were you able to cover communities with those kinds of resources?
Well, we had to get creative in a lot of ways. Rather than manage those newspapers independently of one another, we tried to collaborate together and try to pair resources together.
So where we did have reporters, maybe you could do a regional story that would apply to the places where we didn't have a reporter. Then at least some of the news will be relevant to those readerships. That worked a little bit.
And then we also relied a lot on news from the Detroit Free Press, which is the flagship paper in Michigan.
IPR NEWS: Gannett had this initiative to bring on 30 additional reporters at papers across the country. What kind of difference would that have made to our region?
LEACH: I think that the intentions were altruistic when we first heard about the initiative. It's something that we were excited about. We want our communities to know that we're showing up. And we were hearing from a lot of places where we didn't have reporters for significant periods of time.
For example, the Cheboygan Daily Tribune hasn't had a news reporter since 2022. And we know how damaging that can be to a community where they feel like they're not really being served. We wanted to get those those bodies into those newsrooms, so that we could show up and provide local news content for these communities.
I'm not exactly clear as to why, but that never materialized. Ultimately, that was scrapped or at least put on significant hold, in this year.
IPR NEWS: The term that gets thrown around for northern Michigan sometimes is news desert.
LEACH: I refer to them as ghost newsrooms sometimes, because that's what they are. And we don't really talk about it in media companies. It's a point of embarrassment for a lot of companies, because they don't really have a clear answer as to how to solve that problem.
I tried, while I was within [Gannett], to encourage leadership to have that conversation so that we could brainstorm and explore solutions so that it could ultimately be a positive thing that the that the company could lead.
"I want to be clear that I support all of the people that I was managing. I believe in them, they are skilled people, they don't deserve any negative attention, that might be a repercussion of the situation. I fully support them, and I will be subscribing to those papers because of them."
Sarah Leach
former editor of Gannett papers in northern Michigan
IPR NEWS: Why should someone who doesn't have our job care about this?
LEACH: This is the hardest thing to explain to people who aren't in the business because you don't know what you don't know.
Oftentimes, people don't care about having access to information until something happens — usually something negative that impacts them personally. It could be as as simple as your tax bill going up and you didn't know that you were going to be taxed more, all the way up to the more extreme examples of government corruption and the like.
Because we live in an age where people have easy access to information in lots of different ways, they believe that if they're savvy enough they can find the information that they need — that they don't need to read the traditional sources.
I would say that that is a slippery slope because it's going to put you at a huge disadvantage, in terms of accurate information. You're going to be behind the curve once something actually happens. You're not going to understand why unless you have somebody who's trained to do this and can get in there ask the right questions so that you have the right answers.
IPR NEWS: What are you hoping for the future of these communities that that you served — places like Petoskey, Cheboygan and Gaylord? Will Gannett step up and staff these newsrooms or will it come from a different source?
LEACH: It will depend on how they respond to this. I realize that this isn't the most ideal situation for me or for them. I'm hoping that they are willing to put a good foot forward to the public and will consider revisiting staffing these papers. Hopefully they'll be able to get creative and find the resources to do this.
If not, I'm really encouraging people to try to get a seat at that table and demand more from the media that they're getting. You have a say in what your local community newspaper looks like. It's not just about subscribing or canceling your subscription. You also have have a right to have an opinion and you should be fighting to get credible information with as few barriers as possible.
IPR NEWS: It kind of seems Gannett was hoping not to draw attention to this matter. It strikes me that now that they fired you, you're free to speak your mind on this topic.
LEACH: It is the ultimate irony, isn't it?
IPR NEWS: Your work speaks volumes, especially the coverage of a very volatile situation in Ottawa County. Have you heard from any of your sources and colleagues about what happened to you?
LEACH: Yeah, I've had some conversations privately with the people that I worked with. I want to be clear that I support all of the people that I was managing. I believe in them, they are skilled people, they don't deserve any negative attention, that might be a repercussion of the situation. I fully support them, and I will be subscribing to those papers because of them.
I have had sources come forward and express deep concerns about what this means and how [the Ottawa County Health Department] is going to be covered. I have tried to broker some arrangements with some local affiliates so that I can continue my commitment to seeing this through to the end of the 2024 election cycle, which is a promise that I made to the community 18 months ago.
It is something that I think is of critical need and, frankly, that is of a higher importance than my career with Gannett.
IPR News reached out to Gannett and a spokesperson said the company won’t comment on personnel issues and that it, “remains committed to adding resources to support our newsrooms, including those in Michigan.”
Leach will continue her coverage of the Ottawa County Health Department and other topics on her Substack.
