[DeBaliviere]

Just curious, what did the Detroit posters think about the coverage of their city during the Final Four?

I saw a variety of stories and tributes on CBS, ESPN, etc. - thought some of them were fair, showing the good things happening in Detroit to help counterbalance the bad, and some were a bit over the top.

Eminem's tribute was pretty cool. Mitch Albam had a good piece as well. Seemed like a lot of the media coverage focused on the "never say die" spirit of the city, which was good to see.

Hope April in the D brings more encouraging news for you guys.

[hudkina]

I thought it was a little heavy-handed. The whole idea that the city was hurting and this was just the distraction it needed was a bit "fairy tale-esque". This isn't the movies.

[Blitz]

^ Agreed. The whole 'economy is tanking in Detroit' card was being played a bit too much. The same thing is happening with the Canadian media's treatment of Windsor. It's tiring.

[Michi]

The one that I found most annoying was the story about the pick-pocketers who apparently made Indy's mayor (among others) a victim. The local response was extremely negative, seemingly blaming Detroit and in some instances, saying this would never happen in Chicago and other cities. In fact, the news reports couldn't have made it more clear that the robbers flocked to Detroit from the outside to take advantage of the situation. I think the ones that were caught were even FROM the Chicago area. That didn't stop SE Michigan from trashing itself.

Obviously, this behavior isn't representative of the whole or the majority, but it's still out there. People in our region are extremely uneducated not necessarily in knowledge but in the willingness or ability to understand reality and the potential simplicity that changing your mindset might be all that's needed to help turn Detroit around. Instead, many insist that we are the problem, even though we may not be. I think there is an incredible sense of guilt and denial that man people aren't willing to acknowledge which is evident by always blaming someone else in our regional inner circle. There are just so many blankets of despair covering Detroit (in peoples' minds) that it's almost impossible honestly assess the city for what it really is. The sense of reality is not there and therefore the rhetoric that comes into play is therefore one of a false sense of reality, in other words, not the whole truth.

[hudkina]

So basically we're the problem by not admitting we're not the problem.;)

[LMich]

He's right. If ever allowed to look in from the outside Metro Detroiters would see how incredibly warped their self-perception of their own region really is. Sometimes, listening to some of the long-standing metropolitan narratives of how things were and how things are is like hearing a person's reaction at seeing themselves in a fun-house mirror.