Detroit is Hot

It may be late September, with temperatures this week slated for the 60's, but Detroit is hot. Media-wise, I can't recall in my ten + years as an independent PR consultant a time when national media found Detroit even remotely newsworthy. As a matter of fact, pitching Detroit-area stories to national media has been one of my greatest challenges. Perhaps no longer, though.

Detroit is a topic in this week's FORTUNE, a cover story in Time magazine, and the subject of Time's new Detroit House project blog. Time even bought a house in the city to "embed" a reporter there. (Is that a war zone implication?) Further, a lengthy story in Saturday's (9/26) Wall Street Journal on the historical demise of a home in Detroit's Boston Edison District was the most e-mailed article of the day on WSJ.com. (Okay - I didn't say these were positive stories about Detroit!) There's a counter to that, though. A few months ago, one of my clients was featured in a CNN.com piece on "Why I love Detroit." In all, it's a good time to be a Detroit PR guru.