Detroit Free Press

The Detroit Free Press’s art critic from 1974 to 1995 was Marsha Miro — and she left the paper during what Detroit Research calls “the dissolution of Detroit” to become architectural historian at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where she spent a decade (1995–2005) helping found the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, which opened in 2006, and became its founding director. No SERP page-1 result connects the Free Press to this chapter: for two decades the paper’s critical eye on art was one woman’s, and she turned that eye into an institution.

Overview

The Detroit Free Press is Michigan’s leading media brand and its oldest news organization, publishing online at freep.com and in print seven days a week. It is the largest of more than 200 local news publications owned by USA TODAY Co., Inc., formerly Gannett Co., with a mailing address of 19 Clifford St., Detroit, MI 48226.

The paper’s motto is “On Guard” — short for the rotating “On Guard for [N] Years” formulation it has carried since 1933. It has won 10 Pulitzer Prizes beginning in 1932 and four Emmy Awards (Leddy Library, University of Windsor).

History

The weekly Democratic Free Press and Michigan Intelligencer published its first four-page issue on May 5, 1831 — “packed” with news about war in Poland and ice in Buffalo, New York. It took only three people to put out that first issue: the printer, an apprentice, and 21-year-old publisher Sheldon McKnight, who was funded by family and a friend, John R. Williams — Detroit’s first mayor. When the paper began publishing, Detroit was a town of only 2,300 people, still good enough to be the nation’s 35th largest municipality. The Free Press is Michigan’s first daily newspaper and the state’s oldest news organization.

The name changed repeatedly in its early decades: Democratic Free Press in 1832, Detroit Daily Free Press in 1835, the Daily Free Press in 1842, and a weekly London edition, the Weekly Detroit Free Press, ran from 1881 to 1899 — at its height selling 90,000 copies a week in London. The paper’s 1831 mission statement promised “a newspaper conducted on true democratic principles.”

The Free Press’s list of firsts is long. It printed the nation’s first regular Sunday edition on October 2, 1853, after publisher Wilbur Storey defended the move by saying it wasn’t sacrilege because the paper was distributed before dawn. In 1851 the paper bought a steam engine to power its press — dubbed Peggy Ann for reasons long since lost — which could crank out a then-impressive 400 pages an hour. In 1892 the paper installed the first linotype machine in Michigan, dramatically increasing production.

On the visual side, photography took decades to reach the front page. The Free Press didn’t publish its first news picture on the front page until January 28, 1900 — a photo of British royalty, though the first photograph to appear on the front page at all was an advertisement for a shoe store on Woodward near Jefferson. The first regular press run with a color photo came in December 1953; the picture was a duck dinner.

The paper valued female readers early: in 1878 it began publishing Household, the first U.S. newspaper supplement aimed at women, and three years later Jennie Starkey became the first female staffer, covering Detroit society for some 40 years. Its first Pulitzer came in 1932 for coverage of a huge parade during an American Legion convention — a more recent one helped bring down corrupt Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. The paper’s motto changed on June 9, 1933, from “More Than a Century of Service” to “On Guard for Over a Century”; in 1956 it became “On Guard for 125 Years,” and today it reads “On Guard for 195 Years.”

Ownership and the modern era

John S. Knight bought the Free Press in May 1940. In October 1986 the paper reached its peak daily circulation: 656,477 papers Monday through Saturday. In 1989 the Free Press and the Detroit News entered into the nation’s largest joint operating agreement, a 100-year deal to share business operations and split profits while keeping editorial staffs separate and competitive. The agreement ended on December 28, 2025.

The Free Press went online with freep.com on August 14, 1996. After 65 years of Knight ownership, Knight Ridder Newspapers sold the paper to Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper publisher, in 2005. In March 2009 the Thursday, Friday and Sunday print newspapers were expanded while home delivery on the other days was discontinued, and the e-Edition debuted — an online version exactly as it looks in print. In May 2023, Nicole Avery Nichols was named editor of the Free Press, the first Black woman to carry the title. On January 26, 2026, USA TODAY Co., Inc., formerly Gannett Co., announced it plans to acquire The Detroit News.

The paper hired its first Black reporter in 1955 — Collins George, who eventually became a music critic. Its 2001 mission statement reads: “The Detroit Free Press will stand on guard as the most trustworthy source of news and information for the people of southeast Michigan. We will engage and surprise our readers every day.”

Coverage and impact

The Free Press covers the entire state of Michigan, with a focus on Detroit and the surrounding counties of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb. Its departments include sports, autos, entertainment, business and opinion; in sports it keeps dedicated beat writers for the Detroit Lions, Tigers, Pistons and Red Wings, Michigan Wolverines football and men’s basketball, Michigan State Spartans football and men’s basketball, and high school sports. Autos coverage follows Detroit’s automakers General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.

Its 2024 Community Impact Report highlighted work including reporter John Wisely’s serial podcast “Where Secrets Go to Die,” which uncovered a pattern of police misconduct in an unsolved Michigan murder; food writer Susan Selasky’s identification, with investigative reporter Jennifer Dixon, of $7 million in questionable Small Business Administration restaurant grants in Michigan; and years of reporting on dangerous conditions at Wayne County’s juvenile jail.

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not cover the Free Press’s current editorial positions or endorsements, its digital subscription pricing, or the outcome of the planned USA TODAY Co. acquisition of The Detroit News announced in January 2026. It does not detail the terms of the dissolved joint operating agreement beyond its dates, and it does not list the paper’s individual Pulitzer-winning entries beyond the first award and the Kilpatrick exposé. Marsha Miro’s later career is covered in her own profile; this profile states only her Free Press tenure and the roles that followed it.