I'm confused by the blizzard of self-congratulation about all the great stories the local news outlets tell us they've pulled off over the past year.

It must be prize season again.

A quick Googling of Detroit's "biggest" stories of 2018 exposes the press to be a one-legged man at a dance hall. That is, unwilling to take a stand until the band fires up and changes the tune: Should Auld Stories Be Forgot and Never Brought to Mind?

While some good stories have been written and broadcast, too many others have missed the point -- or, better yet, missed the decimal point. And only when the truth begins to reveal itself does the one legged-man pop to his foot, spin on his heel and dance to the different tune.

Watercolors fade away

Consider: Only now is it being written that the Ilitch family has reneged on its word. On too many occasions, their companies have paraded the same watercolor sketches of downtown development schemes that they insisted could only happen with the aid of public dollars. But once the public handout was pocketed, those watercolors rarely came to life.

The local press, which waved the pom-poms for all the promised stuff, has only now started to criticize the family, now that a local website and a London-based newspaper first pulled back the curtain that the stuff has never materialized.

The same goes for the Amazon deal. Remember the press was all in for forking over untold billions of dollars to the shipping giant in order to entice Amazon to build its second headquarters here? Google it. Few commentators or reporters bothered to do the math, until they realized Detroit had been played.

Now those same commentators are warning us to beware of handing out precious public dollars to giant corporate welfare queens.

We are treated to live pictures of Chief of Police James E. Craig roasting frankfurters at tailgate parties and stopping unsuspecting motorists to give them $100 Christmas bonuses. But none were willing to report on an unsafe city, a lack of a comprehensive police strategy, or crime numbers that have been manipulated for years. (I'm still wondering what happened to those 2,000 violent-crime cases in 2015 that went uncounted.) Then presidents of the police and fire unions decried public safety to be overwhelmed and understaffed.

Unverified 'reporting'

"Police officers in this city have stopped being proactive," said Mark Diaz, outgoing president of the Detroit Police Officers Association, told me in September. Think about that.

"It's all fake," complained Mike Nevin, president of the Detroit Fire Fighters Association, who exposed the fact that firefighters recently waited a half-hour for police to arrive at an active homicide scene because there were no units available.

The chief says it took six minutes, and the press dutifully reported it without verification.

And what did Nevin get for his trouble? An ongoing obstruction of justice investigation by an embarrassed Chief Craig. Go ahead. Google it. The people deserve better. I can't wait for this year's crime stats press conference.



Photo illustration: DepositPhotos

Then there is the City of Detroit's federal demolition program -- the one-time centerpiece of the Duggan administration -- that has all but collapsed under the withering gaze of federal, state and local investigations. We used to be told by Duggan that it was a national model, and the press dutifully wrote it down without question. Google it.

A few good stories have been written on the incompetence of the Detroit Land Bank Authority, which owns the blighted properties and pays for the demos with federal money. But those stories avoid the jugular.

Tell it to grand jurors

Consider that the city has quietly entered into a consent agreement for ignoring federal air quality rules. Asbestos floats in the air. Children's lead levels have increased, probably due to the demolitions, the city's own health department reported. And Duggan's newly hand-picked inspector general recently concluded that while secret meetings with contractors broke no written city rules, it looked really bad and should not have happened. Tell that to the federal grand jury.

My guess is you can expect indictments by mid-year. But that's just me.

I could go on: the failing QLine, the regional transportation plan, the new county criminal justice center, the county treasurer's friends and family plan, the General Motors bait-and-switch, Quicken Loans' federal fraud case scheduled to begin in March, Detroit's credit rating, the myriad no-bid development deals and the fistful of federal corruption investigations enveloping the city.

We read that things are great in Detroit, until they're not and the one-legged man spins on his heel. By then it's too late.

The public knows this. The billionaires and the politicians laugh about it. Even reporters complain that their editors are washing their hands of the dirt for the sake of the Comeback City narrative.

Time for us in the media to make a New Year resolution: stop covering the event and start covering the story.