As Treasury continues to debate whether to save the Big Three automakers and the NYT reports that Michigan (among other states) has run out of money to pay unemployment, here’s more evidence (as if we needed any) of just how bad things have gotten in Michigan:

The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News are planning to stop home delivery most days of the week and print a pared-down version of their papers for newsstands on those days, according to people briefed on the plans. They will be the first major dailies in the country to take such drastic steps.

The papers will deliver to subscribers only on the most profitable days of the week — Sunday, and either Thursday or Friday or both, said these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the changes and the decisions were not final. On other days, they will still print slimmer single-copy editions. The changes will be accompanied by staff cuts, these people said. . . .

The Free Press has weekday circulation of 298,000, the 20th-largest in the country, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, and its Sunday edition ranks sixth, at 605,000.  The News, which does not print on Sundays, has weekday circulation of 178,000. As at other newspapers around the country, circulation at both has dropped steeply — a decline of about one-quarter since 2000 for The Free Press, and one-third for The News, which then was an evening paper.

When I was a kid, my dad was in the newspaper business in Michigan — as an editor and later publisher of papers in Ypsilanti and Saginaw, Michigan (both auto industry towns).  I was 4 when we moved from Ypsilanti to Saginaw, so I don’t remember much about the paper there.  But I do remember role newspapers played both in helping me learn how to read and developing the habit of reading a paper every day.

In those days, most small-town papers (and some big-city papers like the Detroit News) were published in the evening.  (By the 1980s, most such papers had either moved to mornings or closed down.)  The Saginaw News was no exception to that rule.  As a result, we, like most folks my parents knew, subscribed both to the News and to the Free Press.  Each morning, I would read the latter — at first the sports section and the comics, and later the front section.  Reading the Free Press is what got me interested in (and ultimately hooked on) politics.

My dad won’t like to hear this, but the Saginaw News never even remotely held my interest the way the Free Press did.  The Freep’s sports coverage was better (especially when it came to the Tigers), the comics were far superior, and the paper even looked cooler.  Plus it was the big city paper.  When we moved from Saginaw to Ann Arbor, my relationship with the News ended but the Freep remained a mainstay.  Even after my parents moved to Florida, we’d spend our summers in Michigan and I’d still read the Free Press.  Today, when Molly and I go to visit her mom, we still read it.

So to learn that it’s dying is a deeply sad moment for me, the passing of a part of my youth not unlike the destruction of Tiger Stadium.  And for it to happen at almost the very moment when Michigan’s economy is at risk of collapsing is even sadder.

But it’s not surprising.   After all, it’s awfully hard to sustain a business model when even a newspaper is now viewed as a luxury by most Michiganders.  Add the reality that the rise of first television and then the intertubes has wreaked havoc in the newspaper industry, and the end result is that Detroit is going to be the first major American city not to have a daily paper.

I doubt it will be the last.

While I’m on the subject of Michigan’s long, slow decline, here’s another update from Undip reader Ross on the reaction in Michigan to last week’s Republican filibuster of the auto bailout:

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Widespread disbelief here in Michigan today, turning into anger/rage…

Governor Granholm was mightily miffed this morning on Michigan Radio (as well she should be) as is, seemingly everyone I’ve talked to. The pain and widespread worry is especially severe because now it seems that we have been reduced to pinning our hopes on whether that paragon of sensible economic policy, President George W. Bush, will decide to authorize the utilization of TARP funds to extend the ‘bridge loan’ to the Big Three.

At this point, I would hope all his so-called legacy-building includes shoring up the automotive sector so as not to be the President who allowed the manufacturing industry to collapse under the weight of the credit crisis, but… well, you’ll excuse us if our confidence in the sagacity of this current President isn’t exactly registering at or near 100%.

I thought one of the better synopses of last night’s GOP hypocrisy-fest came from Jane Hamsher:

Chris Dodd spoke for working people, and expressed his disbelief that the Senate could let this happen right now:

Talk about your War on Christmas.

Corker of Tennesee then went on to make an impassioned speech about how close they came to a deal, the only sticking point was that the UAW wouldn’t commit to a date to accept salary parity with what workers in foreign auto companies make. Mind you, the Republicans didn’t ask for commitments from dealers or creditors or bond holders or suppliers, just blue collar workers. So that was really where the only problem was going to arise. Funny, none of these bastards demanded wage and benefit cuts for Wall Street workers in the $700 billion bank bailout.

This point is, not surprisingly, echoed by Ron Gettlefinger, UAW President

The GOP Caucus was insisting that the restructuring had to be done on the backs of works and retirees, rather than having all stakeholders come to the table,’ says Gettelfinger.”

Which brings us back to Granholm, who pulled no punches this morning calling out the hypocrisy of the GOP, and the purely political nature of this union scapegoating… That is the true canard in all of this that I hope gets more explanation/coverage from those out there who are trying to help Americans make sense of what is happening right now.

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I would only add that I am sickened by the rank parochialism (or regionalism or whatever you want to call it) of Southern Republicans.  Their votes had little to do with their supposed commitment to laissez faire economics, and everything to do with protecting the advantages — which are largely the product of policies that have limited the UAW’s ability to organize — enjoyed by the foreign auto manufacturers that have built plants in their states.

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• Detroit Exhales
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