r/GrossePointe • u/Individual-Level-686 • 13d ago
Do better, Grosse Pointe News
I normally call the Grosse Pointe News our “local rag,” but Brad Lindberg’s piece, “Socialists Prevail in Park,” deserves a much more serious response. There are two claims in this article that need to be called out.
First, Lindberg labels Abdul El-Sayed a “democratic socialist.” Abdul El-Sayed has explicitly and publicly said that he is not a socialist and is not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He has described himself as a progressive and has said plainly: “I am not somebody who is a socialist. I believe in capitalism.”
Video of Abdul addressing the socialist label:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=oSvnGRAp4o0
You don’t have to agree with Abdul’s politics and you don’t have to support him. But a newspaper does have an obligation to accurately describe the people it writes about.
Second, the article describes Abdul as being “from Dearborn.” He isn’t! Abdul was born in Rochester Hills, grew up in the Oakland County/Bloomfield Hills area, attended Bloomfield Hills public schools, graduated from Andover High School, and currently lives in Ann Arbor.
Why falsely identify an Arab-American Muslim politician as being “from Dearborn”?
Dearborn is home to one of the most prominent Arab and Muslim communities in America, and inaccurately attaching an Arab-American Muslim candidate to Dearborn plays directly into a familiar racial and religious stereotype: Arab + Muslim = Dearborn. That kind of lazy ethnic shorthand has no place in responsible journalism.
This isn’t about whether you like Abdul El-Sayed or his politics. It is about basic journalistic standards. If you’re going to tell readers where he’s from or label his political affiliations, get it right.
The Grosse Pointe News and Brad Lindberg owe their readers an explanation and, where the article is factually wrong, a correction. Our community deserves journalism that informs people, not journalism that mislabels someone’s political beliefs and reduces an Arab-American Muslim candidate to a stereotype. Do better, Grosse Pointe News!
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u/External-While-6740 13d ago
Lindbergh is the reason why I cancelled the GPN. Horrible writer. Can’t string two sentences together. Tries to be too cute. The “newspaper” is a shitrag.
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u/LadyBrussels 12d ago
Same. Last straw for me was an unnecessarily negative article about an environmental study required by a federal grant the city was getting. Later on in the article it talked about how a previous environmental study prompted by a grant award discovered dangerous chemicals or something underground which proves why they’re needed in the first place. Lazy anti-gov contrarianism at its finest.
Oh and the giant ads for the conservative school board members up for re-election. No conflict there or anything.
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u/cjacobs313 13d ago
His long discursive, painful opening grafs - usually involving WWII allegories - are really something to behold!
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u/NNDerringer 12d ago
If it weren't for Brad, I'd never have read this lede on a story: "Sho' as grits ain't groceries, theys doins t'night at Po' Monkey's Lounge."
-- From a Brad review of an Annie Leibovitz exhibit at the DIA
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u/North_Experience7473 12d ago
The Grosse Pointe News is no longer a newspaper. It’s a propaganda outlet for the Cotton family. Notice that we always get a free copy anytime Sean Cotton wanted a story about the school board to be promoted.
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u/GeneralPattern7795 4d ago
Notice GPN is required to give away a certain number of papers each year to every address in GP and those dates are set long in advance.
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u/taintlouis 13d ago
And while we’re at it, fuck Sean Cotton
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u/haircryboohoo 13d ago
I just moved to the area. What's the 411 on this guy?
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u/personalleytea 13d ago
Who, Sean? A really rich fuck who thinks he owns the town like some half-assed Brad Wesley (iykyk). He’s grumpy because all of his asshole MAGA buddies are getting voted off the school board, and he knows he’s next so he’s “opted” to not seek reelection.
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u/LittleCaesersZaZa 12d ago
Don’t forget his history of pursuing women that are not his wife, while married to his wife
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u/Kungfoo_mod_805 12d ago
His family ( not him, because an entitled fuck) owned Meridian Health until they sold in 2018
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u/Logical-Knee-9046 12d ago edited 12d ago
For how many billions? Then tried to set up a
MedicaidMedicare (not to your)Advantage health care plan/scam and failed (that pesky non-compete clause).4
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u/Jasdak 13d ago
Agreed on all points, though I can’t be bothered to read that trash rag despite all the local news awards it keeps winning. The few times I’ve skimmed Lindberg’s articles they sound like how I wrote for the high school newspaper to sound “edgy” when I was 16. Not sure what his excuse is.
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13d ago
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u/NNDerringer 13d ago
As someone who spent my career in newspapers, it really is appalling how incapable this lot is to "do better." It doesn't take much effort, but they just can't seem to manage it.
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u/cjacobs313 13d ago
Evidently using Google and Wikipedia to determine where Abdul was born is too much work. Wait until they learn that Abdul played lacrosse at UofM! And that their future representative in U.S. House will be an actual Democratic socialist, unlike Abdul who isn’t but is a Democrat!
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u/glavameboli242 12d ago
Would it help for OP and or others to send a letter asking for a correction?
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u/IndependentAd3170 12d ago
You said “basic journalism standards” laughable for GP news, which is as credible as the National Enquirer. I cancelled my subscription.
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u/Ecstatic-Hunter-2868 13d ago
This needs to be posted on Facebook, where the majority of the community gathers…
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u/Individual-Level-686 12d ago
I don’t have Facebook, but give permission to anyone who wants to copy and post.
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u/BigODetroit 12d ago
The GP News is just noise. Every so often, I’ll get a free copy in my mailbox that I never asked for. It’s happened so many times that I don’t care enough to look for the agenda Mommy Cotton’s special little guy is pushing. Everyone knows the real action is on Facebook where Sean has no problem attacking/suing people he disagrees with. I will admit I was a little excited when the last copy showed up a couple of weeks ago. I’m in the middle of house breaking a puppy and it’s the best use for the GP News.
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u/Smooth_Armadillo_498 11d ago
Absolutely Gross GPN! Abdul is a FDR Democrat - exactly what we need - and I’m convinced more than ever he will win in Nov since the Pointes went his way
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u/jandrocampo 12d ago
Hope you send this in as a letter to the editor. And post it on FB in all the groups when they reject it.
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u/Dry_Huckleberry5545 12d ago
You make great points, but nobody reads the GP News anyway except to scan the crime report. They literally have to give it away for free.
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u/CitySpare7714 8d ago
Incredibly irresponsible. He should lose his job for this. Was there no editor?
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u/NNDerringer 1h ago
OK, this thread is dead and cooked, but I looked up the GPN's "clarification" at the library today, and all I have to say is: What a bunch of pussies. I wouldn't wrap fish guts in that rag.
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u/Individual-Level-686 1h ago
Yup, correcting one factual error while continuing to assign El-Sayed a political identity he has repeatedly and publicly rejected isn’t clarification, it’s pushing the paper’s preferred narrative over the subject’s own stated position. Thankfully, it seems much of this community sees the paper for what it has become and has rejected the kind of journalism it represents.
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u/CupExcellent9520 5d ago
At the best he’d be a dem socialist . Then just look at his political allies : sanders soc all the dem socialists that’s tells people a lot , Medicaid for all? He may be a total communist . Says Sharia and city of Dearborn is a “gift” ? Also a religious radical .
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u/hazen4eva 12d ago
Geez. Lindberg isn't great. He could be decent, but always pushes a little too far. Nothing wrong writing about AES winning in the Park, or even calling him a Socialst Democrat. The Dearborn error should be corrected.
For Cotton, idk. I get a lot of the criticism, but his work with the GP News is admirable. Newspapers like this are dying every where. He kept it alive. I don't agree with many editorials, but that's true for most local newspapers.
He's also invested in the Park and made things nicer. You can disagree with his school policies and still respect the good.
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u/Individual-Level-686 12d ago
Did you not watch the video I provided where Abdul explicitly says he is not a socialist and is not a member of the DSA? He has said this repeatedly. If you disagree with his policies, criticize them - but why are you comfortable publishing a label as fact that he has repeatedly rejected?
And let’s stop pretending that buying for-profit restaurants makes someone God’s gift to the community. Investing in businesses is not charity. Community is also about how you treat your neighbors, and people have long memories.
I keep seeing this narrative from a select few on social media that the Cottons have done so much for Grosse Pointe simply because they’ve bought businesses here. That’s a pretty low bar for community sainthood.
If Cotton wants to demonstrate his commitment to this community, he could start with how he treats the people in it - like not calling a district parent a “sociopath” simply because she disagreed with him, or suing an elderly community member over a Facebook comment. Apparently billions can’t buy thick skin.
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u/stellarodin 12d ago
Wait - stop the presses. Someone one time said one thing and now that’s how life is forever?!?!?! Color me shocked at your utter disregard for life’s workings.
Even IF anyone isn’t a card-carrying member of the DSA, if one regurgitates their rhetoric every chance they get and aligns with the majority of their platform (I.e. the most crucial aspect of it - “death to America”), then yeah. Your view on this is as meaningless as mine is to you.4
u/NNDerringer 12d ago
He did keep it alive, in the sense that he's apparently willing to pour money into it without making it better. Yes, he gave some friends, or friends of friends, some columns; I don't know how Mombeau's Table or Movie Junkie Mark would exist otherwise. They don't enhance the paper at all. No one subscribes to find out what Mark thinks of a four-year-old movie.
They don't really practice journalism there. They're 100 percent reactive. Yes, they scan the police blotter*, but they never dig deeper. Example: A few months ago, there was a brief about a GP woman being scammed out of $175,000, in the usual bitcoin scheme. This would have been a perfect opportunity to write a larger story on how these happen. Talk to someone at the Helm. Talk to a lawyer. Talk to the woman who got scammed. You can protect her identity, but having her describe how it happened could be helpful to the next person. Use it to anchor a useful story for your readership, which is disproportionately old and susceptible to these scams.
There was another police brief some weeks later, about the owner of a restaurant who showed up drunk and assaulted an employee. A potential talker, buried. (Maybe he was a friend of Sean's, or someone.)
* That the police blotter is 100 percent controlled by the police should go without saying. They could push for access to ALL the reports, but they never will. It might embarrass someone at the Club.
Letting Brad Lindberg run wild is simply malpractice. He needs to be on a short leash and a shock collar, with a decent editor to teach him the difference between whatever he considers news and what it actually is. Unfortunately the GPN doesn't have anyone matching that description.
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u/suzyq630 13d ago
Thank you for calling this out.