GOOD JOURNALISM 2025

Wow. What a week for the Baldas-Elrick household.

The two best articles I have seen in a long, long time were both published in this week’s Detroit Free Press… both Grand Slam Home Runs.

Tresa Baldas.

You led off with a most emotionally, gripping, front page, David vs Goliath account of a voiceless and troubled citizen taking on the establishment and getting a Four Million Dollar, Jury Verdict against a cop who, literally, punched the man’s eye out, blinding him in that eye for the rest of his life. (12/19/2025 article (How ‘victim-shaming’ backfired in police brutality case).

Tresa, you took no liberties in your dramatic reporting. You simply saw the drama inherent in the incident and portrayed it with your journalistic talent. Reading the clarity and flow of your report, I felt like I was in the streets when the punch was thrown, in the Courtroom when the Judge said, “Let the Jury decide” and in the Jury box when the Jurors announced their Four Million Dollar Verdict. Outstanding Journalism.

M.L. Elrick.

Not to be outdone, you followed up in today’s Sunday Detroit Free Press (12/21/2025) with your thorough and idealistic coverage of Detroit’s first woman Mayor, Mary Sheffield, and her father, the Reverend Horace Sheffield III (Detroit’s next mayor is stubborn and strong-willed).

You deftly weaved Detroit’s, sordid, past, political history (Pay to Play administration of “Kwame and Friends”) with today’s Detroit political scene. In doing so, you “honestly,” “fairly” and “graciously” told both sides of the M.L. Elrick—Sheffields’ story… while, rightfully, bringing up the reality of a Detroit Free Press that no longer has a “room with a view”… no longer has a journalistic presence in the CAYMC that looks directly through “the window to the powerful” at the Detroit Mayor and the ruling parties who occupy Detroit’s Political Headquarters. Or, as you so poignantly put it, “A watchdog who is on the doorstep sees more than a watchdog that is chained up in the garage across the street” (or in the basement).

Outstanding journalism, M.L. with free-flowing clarity and rhythm. Your piece “bounced” along like the era of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest… as his Merry Brand of Pranksters rode into New York City after their cross journey of High Jinks and Highjacks.

As an aside, Kwame’s Pay to Play (aka your book, The Kwame Sutra) has been fully embraced by “The Donald”… and is, today (in 2025), just the “standard fare” of everyday political life and maneuverings. Ugg !!! Where is an America’s leader when we desperately need one ???

Hear, Hear… On me tab

Let me buy you both a beverage. A shot of Irish whiskey to celebrate two outstanding Detroit Free Press articles in but a single week. “A shot of Tullamore DEW for me, literary friends, your Honor. Put it on me ever-growing… ‘tab for tomorrow.’ ”

Fred Lauck
Copyrighted