PHOTOS BY ANTHONY LANZILOTE continued from page 29 30 | JANUARY 9 • 2020 Fink, a native of Metro Detroit, always aspired to be a journalist. During college, his first paying journalism job was with the Jewish News. “Part of its attraction was talking history with Jewish News founder and publisher Philip Slomovitz. His stories were better than history class. He actually knew Israel’ s founders as well as America’ s leaders. He delighted in telling stories, and I was eager to hear them, ” he said. “My passion for journal- ism and the First Amendment began at the Jewish News. ” He was also a writer and editor for his student newspaper, then the Daily Collegian at Wayne State University. After graduation in 1963, he applied and was accepted to law school, but deferred the option for a report- ing job at the Flint Journal. A few years later, he returned to his hometown as a reporter for the Detroit News. A nine-month newspaper strike in 1967 left Fink with extra time to re-evaluate his career. Shortly after the strike, he started night school at Detroit College of Law. During those years, he worked the grave- yard shift and eventually was promoted to night city editor at the News while studying law and starting a family with his late wife, Annette. Armed with his law degree, he left journalism to practice law with Detroit’ s Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn law firm, specializing in representing local and national media companies. He represented the JN on First Amendment matters while an attorney with Honigman Miller. After 35 years as a partner, he began his “encore career” as legal counsel for his long- time client, the Detroit Free Press, and five sister Michigan news properties. He is also of counsel at the business law firm Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss P .C. He lives in Orchard Lake with his wife, Adrienne. They are members of the Zionist Organization of America and are heavily involved with the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills. Fink was also a founding member of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival and is involved with the Chamber Music Society of Detroit. They attend services at Adat Shalom Synagogue. His daughter, Sheri Fink, is a physician who left medicine to become a New York FIRST AMENDMENT CONCERNS Fink said he’ s concerned with the media bias in national newspapers in today’ s hyper-partisan political climate. “Opinion polls taken by a number of polling organizations show the public has a remarkably low opinion of the press, as low as or similar to its low opinion of Congress,” he said. “I’ ve always believed that credibility is the most important thing that we as journalists can have,” he added. “And that derives from being accurate, acknowledging errors, being fair and unbiased, separating opinion from news and factual news gathering … I think what was reflected in the low opinion of the public is that the media has lost credibility.” Fink said he was heartened by a recent poll that showed local news media was still highly regarded in terms of its credibility and accuracy. “The kind of watchdog journalism that local news organizations do is what is important to the public,” he said. “I’ m talking about newspapers and the kind of watchdog journalism the Free Press has been doing and continues to do despite diminishing resources.” What disturbs Fink the most, he said, is intolerance for differing opin- ions. “It’ s endemic at universities and college campuses around the country. There are demonstrations that shut down the ability of students to hear both sides of an issue or political debate. For all intents and purposes, there is no longer any free speech on many college campuses. That, to me, is the most disturbing thing because the basis of the First Amendment, as was said by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: ‘ Freedom of speech means a free marketplace of ideas.’ This free mar- ketplace of ideas, the whole basis of the First Amendment, has been lost on many college campuses. That disturbs me greatly.” Jews in the D